You Live and Learn

You live and learn...or you don't and you keep making mistakes.  The latter part is more the story of my life.  

I attempted to make bread today. 

I received a bread machine in Christmas 2012 - yes, that is not a typo. I received it two Christmases ago. One of my goals for the year 2013 was to make bread using my bread machine. The year came and went but only store-bought bread was in our kitchen cabinet. I decided this week was the week for the bread machine. Little Lady and I went shopping for all of our ingredients earlier this week.

dry milk, salt, butter, bread flour, sugar, quick active yeast, and my bread machine 

I got everything out last night and it was all set up for me to start today. I even remembered to pull the butter out from the fridge this morning so it would soften in time for me to make the bread this afternoon.   I also had the foresight to plan on having soup for dinner tonight so we would have fresh bread to go with it!  

It was very cold out today so I took Little Lady to the mall to do some mall walking. We returned home in time for me to feed her dinner, and while she was eating, I got all my ingredients prepped and measured.  

I want to preface this by saying I have never used this bread machine before today.  The cord was still encased in plastic and thankfully I pulled all the pieces apart this morning because there was Styrofoam at the bottom of the machine which I had to remove. I couldn't find the manual since I had unpacked this machine from the box a lifetime year ago but I figured a little Google search would do the job.  I found a very helpful WikiHow article that informed me of a couple key things such as what order to combine all the ingredients, as well as helpful tips in regards to making sure the kneading blade is inserted into the baking pan.  The article vaguely mentioned that if you turn the baking ban upside down, the kneading blade will fall out. I tried this, but when my blade didn't fall out, I assumed my bread machine was superior and the manufacturer had figured out how to make the blades stick in there.   

Oh my no.

Fast forward 15 minutes and all of my ingredients are in the baking pan and the baking pan is securely in the bread machine. I turned it on and selected my setting - white bread, light crust color - I hit START and off we go. The display read that I would have toasty bread in two hours and 45 minutes.  

Now The Hubby would want me to insert here that I am not the most patient person when it comes to cooking. If something is cooking in the oven, it is not adequate for me to turn on the oven light and peer through the door.  No, I have to open the door to see what's inside.  I do this with the crock-pot as well. My crock-pot has a completely glass see-through lid. I must open it completely to see what's inside, E V E R Y T I M E. 

Well thankfully my bad habits served me well today. An hour into delicious bread-making goodness, I peeked in on my little bread, opening up the main compartment to see what it looked like. 

It didn't look like bread. 

It looked like exactly what I put in there an hour ago - a combination of dry flour, salt, sugar, dry yeast and wet ingredients.  Hmm I thought, we're more than a third of the way there and it doesn't look like bread yet. 

No worries.

1 hour later - my curiosity gets the best of me and I peek inside again to find the same dry flour, salt, sugar, dry yeast and wet ingredients. I think to myself, maybe it's time to find the instructions. I hunt around in the basement filing cabinet that holds all of our manuals. I give up once and go back upstairs to peek in on my ingredients to see if it's turned into a loaf yet. Nothing. I go back down to try one more time and am successful. I wouldn't exactly call this successful though because upon finding the manual, I also find the kneading blade, no no, not an extra kneading blade, THE kneading blade. 

I am horrified. 

I turn off the machine, unplug it, and pull out the extremely hot baking pan. I dump the still-uncooked, dry ingredients into a bowl. I rinse off the new blade and insert it into its rightful place in the baking pan.  I then proceed to pour all my ingredients back into the pan.

   

I tried turning it back on immediately but my silly breadmaker kept telling me there was an error - probably because it was too hot in there for the start of a new loaf of bread.

Two hours and 45 minutes later - this is what I created: 

Probably not going to win any prizes for best-looking loaf of bread...

it did taste good though!

Along with my bread machine, I received a very helpful resource - The Betty Crocker Bread Machine Cookbook.  It has proved to be helpful in diagnosing the cause of my deflated loaf...note the second to last bullet point..."bread machine was opened during rising and baking cycles."  I'm not saying that is definitely the cause...but I am not ruling it out...

Other than the initial debacle with a missing kneading blade, and my love of seeing what I'm cooking, I enjoy making my own bread!  I can't wait to master white bread and move onto more adventurous tasty treats! - says the village idiot