Focus on Bread Machines
Some bakers look down on bread machines and consider the bread produced to be inferior. Is that position justified, or do bread machines have an important role to play in modern baking?
Our thoughts
At Shipton Mill, while we agree that they remove the “artisan” element from the baking, we believe they play an important part in encouraging widespread baking and improving the quality of the food that we eat. They do this by allowing time-pressed people to be in control of what they eat by controlling or selecting the ingredients that they use to produce perfectly acceptable bread. from the best ingredients.
Proof in the eating
As the saying goes, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating”. So we decided to bake some of the recipes that have been added to our website using our bread machine (a Panasonic SD-255). Details of the best results are below, all of which proved to be suitable (sometimes subject to a few tweaks) for use in our bread machine. We have also added comments to the recipes on the site.
Bread Machine Recipe Reviews
We used all the recipes reviewed below to produce good, very tasty or delicious bread. Given they were not designed specifically for bread machines, we think that it’s a very good demonstration of how much good bread you can make with them.
Don’t forget that you can use the bread machine to provide a consistent knead at the right temperature and for the right amount of time. Then the dough can be tipped out and finished off by hand in an normal oven.
Help us improve our bread machine recipes
When you try any of our recipes (whether in a bread machine or not), please let us know by adding a comment to the recipe. It only takes a minute and your feedback will help others. Thanks.
Milk and honey bread
Quantities: We halved the quantities in the recipe
Settings: put it on the milk loaf setting to produce a large loaf. It was also suitable for using on the rapid setting.
Verdict: Very Tasty
Organic light malt house loaf
Quantities: We halved the quantities in the recipe and used 1 sachet of dried yeast instead of fresh yeast.
Settings: Put on a granary loaf setting to produce a large loaf. Also been tried using the basic loaf setting and rapid loaf setting, all successful.
Verdict: Very Tasty
Cheese rolls
Quantities: Put all the ingredients into the machine
Settings: Put it on a basic loaf setting producing a large loaf (not rolls as the recipe suggests)
Tweaks: Produced a delicious loaf but in future would make a smaller loaf as the top sank slightly when cooling, this could be because the cheese and onion ingredients are quite heavy.
Also would not add so much salt next time, as the cheese is quite salty.
Verdict: Delicious
Tomato and garlic bread
Quantities: Halved the quantities in the recipe
Settings: Put all the ingredients into the machine and put it on a basic bread setting.
Verdict: Very Tasty
A lighter spelt bread
Quantities: Only used 2/3rd of quantities recommended
Settings: Put on a rye bake setting. Can also be used on a quicker setting, such as the basic loaf setting and the rapid loaf setting.
Verdict: Good
Ornella’s ciabatta bread
Quantities: Took the biga out of the recipe
Settings: Put all the ingredients into the machine, put it on an Italian basic setting. Can be used in a basic bread setting and rapid load setting.
Tweaks: Results tasted a bit too salty, suggest reducing the salt to taste.
Verdict: Good
The Swiss-German Sunday bread
Quantities: Halved the ingredients, put on a basic large loaf setting, medium crust.
Settings: Would recommend putting it on a light crust setting as the crust was slightly burnt.
Tweaks: Recipe suggests it produces a plaited bread, we produced a loaf.
Verdict: Good
Multi-flour bread
Quantities: Halved the ingredients, recipe does not suggest water, we added 360ml water.
Settings: Put on a basic bread setting.
Tweaks: Add 360ml water.
Comments: Have also used this recipe changing some of the flours depending on what is left over and needs using up, produced excellent results every time.
Verdict: Delicious. Star recipe!
Great French bread recipe
Quantities: Only used ¾ of quantities recommended. Used dried yeast not fresh yeast.
Settings: Basic setting with ¾ sachet of yeast instead of a whole sachet. (Also tried it on a French bake 6hr setting, which was not successful, and on a basic loaf setting which produced a much better loaf , but the top sank a bit.
Comments: Produced a loaf not sticks like the recipe suggests.
Verdict: Good
Rye bread using yeast
Quantities: We increased the water from 280ml to 350ml
Settings: Put on a rye setting and use the rye kneading.
Verdict: Very Tasty, but more work needed to get the right consistency.
Old-fashioned oatmeal loaf
Quantities / tweaks: Use ½ the quantities. We use Shipton Mill’s medium oatmeal instead of rolled oats. Used fresh milk instead of milk powder, used the same quantity and lowered the water quantity.
Comments: Can use pinhead oats as well as medium oatmeal.
Verdict: Delicious
Ciabatta
Tweaks: Did not make the sponge starter.
Quantities: Halved the quantity recommended
Settings: Put on an Italian basic setting. Can be used on a basic loaf setting.
Comments: Produced a good loaf, tastes salty at the beginning then ends with a good taste of olive oil.
Verdict: Good
Tom’s half ‘n’ half
Quantities: as per recipe
Settings: Put on a basic large setting loaf.
Comments: Can experiment with using different flours.
Verdict: Delicious
Rye and Swiss dark flour loaf
Quantities: Used 1/3rd quantities recommended, including 330ml water.
Settings: Put on a rye bake setting.
Verdict: Very Tasty
Honey and olive oil spelt bread
Quantities: as per recipe
Settings: Put on a basic rapid setting producing a large loaf.
Comments: Can also use the 3 malts and sunflower brown flour as well as the light malthouse flour.
Verdict: Good
Emmer loaf
Quantities: as per recipe
Settings: Put on a basic rapid loaf setting producing a medium sized loaf.
Verdict: Good
Milwaukee Rye
Quantities: as per recipe
Settings: Put on a basic rapid setting. Could be put on a rye setting, but the basic rapid produced a very tasty loaf.
Tweaks: Recipe asks for white flour, we used a mixture of traditional white and white spelt, but any white flour will be suitable or can be experimented with. We also used Shipton Mill’s 5 seed blend instead of caraway seeds.
Verdict: Very Tasty
Wheat free bread
Quantities: as per recipe
Settings: Put on a basic rapid setting.
Comments: The result showed there was too much water in the recipe. The loaf naturally did not rise much. You could try adding medium oatmeal to give the loaf a bit of volume.
Verdict: Good starting point, but needs more experimentation