When the whole gang was here one of our granddaughters was crazy about some white buns I had made. I asked her if she wanted to learn how to make them and got an enthusiastic YES! We loaded the ingredients into the breadmaker and set it on the dough cycle. When it was finished there was a huge disappointment: the dough was not dough. It was cold and poorly mixed. The breadmaker had failed!
I salvaged the dough by kneading it by hand until it was warm and elastic, set it in a warm oven to rise and then we made the buns. They turned out just o.k.
Over the past weekend we needed some more bread, so I loaded up the breadmaker with freshly milled whole wheat flour and the rest of the ingredients. I checked after a few minutes, and, although the display said "Preheat" nothing was warm. My good breadmaker, an expensive Zojirushi, was NOT working properly! How sad!
So I kneaded the dough by hand again, greased it, put it in a bowl in a warm oven to rise.
After one hour it seemed pretty good. I divided it into two parts, one for bread and the other for a few hamburger buns. I set them to rise.
I like hamburger buns to be quite flat but with a wide diameter. It makes it easier to get your mouth around the whole hamburg + bun + condiments. So I took them out after just 20 minutes and baked them. The loaf of bread rested near the heat, but not in the oven. When the buns were finished, the loaf went into the cooled oven to finish rising.
ALAS! It did not rise; it fell! What to do? I put it in the oven to bake, hoping (foolishly) for some "oven bounce." Which, of course, never happened. This is probably the worst loaf of bread that I ever baked!
I salvaged the dough by kneading it by hand until it was warm and elastic, set it in a warm oven to rise and then we made the buns. They turned out just o.k.
Over the past weekend we needed some more bread, so I loaded up the breadmaker with freshly milled whole wheat flour and the rest of the ingredients. I checked after a few minutes, and, although the display said "Preheat" nothing was warm. My good breadmaker, an expensive Zojirushi, was NOT working properly! How sad!
So I kneaded the dough by hand again, greased it, put it in a bowl in a warm oven to rise.
After one hour it seemed pretty good. I divided it into two parts, one for bread and the other for a few hamburger buns. I set them to rise.
I like hamburger buns to be quite flat but with a wide diameter. It makes it easier to get your mouth around the whole hamburg + bun + condiments. So I took them out after just 20 minutes and baked them. The loaf of bread rested near the heat, but not in the oven. When the buns were finished, the loaf went into the cooled oven to finish rising.
ALAS! It did not rise; it fell! What to do? I put it in the oven to bake, hoping (foolishly) for some "oven bounce." Which, of course, never happened. This is probably the worst loaf of bread that I ever baked!
When it cooled I put it in plastic and wondered what to do with it. Could I slice it and fry it in butter and then melt cheese over it? I tasted a slice. Forget it!
For dinner yesterday I wanted to use up the leftover salmon salad. This would be the third time it was served: first on buns to the whole gang, second for Jim and myself on buns for Sunday light lunch. How to serve it this time?
I mixed in an egg, some McCormick's Vegetable Seasonings (an herb mix I use in quite a few dishes), some dill and some basil. Then I whirled about half the failed loaf in the food processor and added the crumbs to the salmon mix. It made an absolutely delicious salmon loaf. We ate about half and the other half is in the freezer for some future meal.
We're out of bread again, so I tried this morning with the breadmaker. I preheated all the ingredients myself, loaded them into the breadmaker and started the quick dough cycle. It worked perfectly! The Preheat cycle worked, the kneading cycle worked and the dough was beautiful. Here are the finished loaves:
Perfectly fine! A mystery which I'm glad to leave behind.
Another mystery: our water heater quite working on Saturday. I found out by taking a barely lukewarm shower. We had just had the thermistor (the heat sensor) replaced two weeks ago. Why would it fail again so soon?
I had an idea: I turned off the power to the unit, left it off for a minute or so, turned it back on, and the whole system went right back to work the way it should. Kind of like resetting an electronic device. So glad I thought of it!
