Follow Bread Machine Recipe Measurements Exactly for a Great Loaf

We all love a hot slice of bread, fresh from the oven. Whether you enjoy your bread with butter and garlic or toasted with jam, fresh-baked bread is hard to beat. It can be a tasty treat for a snack or the basis for everyday meals.

Putting effort into baking bread, with all the mixing and kneading and waiting necessary to form a loaf, there can still be bread failures. What a bummer to have your bread not turn out right after all that effort. Fortunately, most bread failures are still edible so all the ingredients shouldn't go to waste.

Bread Pan

Unsatisfactory results are things like the bread not rising enough or having too much rising. The top or sides may collapse or the loaf may have an overall poor shape. Sometimes bread will have a very dark and too-thick crust. When it's a heavy or raw-tasting bread, we call that a brick and it's a do-over.

The easiest way to avoid these types of bread failures is to follow the recipe exactly and add the ingredients in the order given. Standard bread machine recipes have been researched and tested time and time again, so these recipes have the right proportions of ingredients. The amounts of ingredients are very important in making a perfect loaf of bread. Experimentation with amounts of ingredients is not suggested, except for the addition of special ingredients added near the end of the kneading cycle. It probably doesn't matter, except for taste, whether you add ¼ or ½ a cup of raisins to the mix for raisin bread.

Because altering the amounts of ingredients may affect the rising of the bread, carefully measured ingredients are the key to making a delicious and beautiful loaf of bread. Large amounts of dry ingredients, like one cup of flour or sugar, should be lightly spooned into a measuring cup so that the cup is overflowing. Do not scoop the empty cup into a container of flour as you might trap a large air bubble or pack in the flour too densely, which would make for an inaccurate measure. Take the flat edge of a knife and scrape the excess flour from the top of the cup. Make sure the cup is totally filled and has a smooth, even top. The same leveling technique should be used to measure small amounts of dry ingredients, like baking powder, cinnamon, dried milk or salt, using teaspoon or tablespoon measures.

A tip for measuring bulky items, like cottage cheese or applesauce, is to add them directly to a liquid measuring cup. The bread recipe will call for water or milk as the liquid ingredient, so measure that into a liquid measuring cup. It's easiest to use a two-cup measuring cup for this task as there will be enough liquid for measuring and enough space left over to add the second ingredient. Note the height of the liquid on the measuring scale. Spoon in the bulky ingredient until the correct amount is added. No need for dirtying a second measuring cup. Liquids go into the bread machine mixing pan first, so empty the measuring cup into the bread pan and continue with carefully measuring out the dry ingredients.

Follow Bread Machine Recipe Measurements Exactly for a Great Loaf

Naomi Gallagher is a writer and a fantastic cook with a love for machines that help her make the most of her time in the kitchen. Making homemade bread has become one of her specialties. Learn more by visiting her sites where she likes to write about making bread and cooking great food: http://lazysusanspicerack.com/ and http://toastmasterbreadmachine.com/.

My Links : cuisinart multiclad unlimited 4 quart saucepan cuisinart chef's classic stainless steel 10 piece