The Two Biggest Fears about Bread Machines
When people get a bread machine they’re generally faced with two conflicting fears.
The first fear people have is they’ll go wild. They envision becoming bread-eating machines. After all, who could have restraint when faced with the aroma of baking bread?
The second fear, oddly enough, is that they won’t eat the bread fast enough. They’re afraid that the bread will go bad before it’s eaten. Nobody wants to waste time or ingredients.
Let’s deal with these one at a time.
Fear One – I’ll go wild and eat way too much bread.
The fact is that you will go wild. It will last for two or three loaves of bread. Then you’ll get used to having homemade bread around the house. In other words, the effect will wear off.
Don’t get me wrong, you’ll still love the aroma of baking bread. You’ll enjoy the taste. You’ll scoff at store-bought bread. You’ll start looking at sandwiches in a whole new way. You’ll branch out into making hamburger burns and rolls. But you won’t feel the need to eat bread all day every day.
Fear Two – The bread will go bad before I can eat it all.
Not to worry. Here’s what you do. Once the bread is cooled slice the entire loaf at once. Then put the sliced bread into a Ziploc bag and put the bag into your freezer.
Take the bread out as needed and put into the toaster. Our toaster can thaw the bread and toast it with one round of toasting. My parents need to run the bread through the toaster twice. Either way, it works fine the bread tastes great.
When you freeze the bread, sliced, do you put parchment paper between the slices? How difficult is it to just pick out a couple of slices to heat?
Also, does putting the frozen bread in the toaster actually toast the bread or just thaw it out and warm it? I really need to know as it is only two of us now and we love home made bread.
Great questions! No need to put parchment paper between the slices. It’s easy to separate the frozen bread slices using a kitchen knife. Depending on how long the toaster is set for, you can either thaw or toast the bread.
I usually, and customarily only bake in the machine the first time to see what the texture, crust, and crumb are like. THEN I use my assorted bread pans to good use, and simply make dough to save my arthritic hands for slicing and eating the yummy bread! I’ve also discovered that white bread does best in metal, while whole wheat does best in my ceramic loaf pan. I tried a silicone pan, and didn’t care for how the bread turned out at all! Guess that it doesn’t transfer the heat well enough for the crust to develop which affects the loaf even more than what you’d think. Also, I make my own English muffins, and those don’t get baked, but fried w/o oil in a frying pan that’s got a non-stick surface. Works quite well, and looks just like the store bought variety, but tastes so much better!
I have a bread machine the one thing I don’t like is the fact when the bread is done it leaves a big hole in the bottom of the bread.
How many blades does your machine have? I think that the machines with only one blade leave a bigger hole in the bread.