Bread

I've been meaning to post about this for a while. I recently baked two different kinds of bread in my Salton Breadman Ultimate machine that I haven't tried to make before. The machine makes it incredibly easy to bake 1-, 1 and 1/2-, and 2 pound loaves of bread. All you have to do is put the current amount of ingredients in the bread pan, set the machine for whatever bread cycle you need, and hit the start button. I find it takes me no more than 15 minutes to dump everything in the pan and turn the machine on. Once I press the start button, it takes approximately 3 and 1/2 hours to mix, knead, rise, and bake a 2-pound loaf of bread. The hardest part of baking a loaf of bread with the machine is finding the necessary ingredients. Some stores don't carry some of the ingredients (ex. rye flour). Another drawback to making some of the breads is the expense. A 3 ounce jar of Caraway seed can cost you $3! I tend to use a lot of Caraway seed in my Pumpernickel and Rye breads as I really like it.

Recently, I baked loaves of Onion and Rye bread and Egg bread. I found the Onion and Rye bread interesting in that you could smell the onion big time when it was baking BUT you couldn't taste it afterwards. I thought that kind of strange. With the Egg bread, I liked the yellow color of the bread and its sweet taste. You use sugar or honey with this bread and it shows in the taste. One of these days when I feel really daring, I plan to bake a loaf of Banana Nut bread. I remember my mom baking it as a kid and I've loved it ever since. It'll be fun to make a loaf of that. I also need to bake a loaf of Pumpernickel for a friend. I promised them a loaf and just need to get off my lazy duff and make one for them.