Basya Tsybukmakher
When my husband was trying to persuade me to buy a bread machine, I tried to talk him out of it, arguing that “we will use it a few times, and then it will just gather dust and take up space.”
But we bought it after all. That was 14 years ago, and since then I have already replaced 3 bread machines, each of which was used to the fullest. I do not keep it on my kitchen counter; I take it out once or twice a week to bake bread—rye, whole-grain, French, with flaxseed, with nuts. I also make dough for challah loaves, rolls, pita bread, and mezonot rolls, and sometimes I even make strawberry jam or other jams in it.
Starting a batch of bread or challah dough takes only a couple of minutes, and you always know what is in it. I often experiment with additions: seeds, nuts, onion, caraway, ground flaxseed, raisins, whole sesame seeds, bran, and so on.
A Few Tips:
- I freeze the challah loaves and bread, so we have enough for the week, and I can make challah on any day, saving time before Shabbat. - Buy the largest bread machine, with a capacity of at least 1,5 kg of dough, preferably a horizontal model. - If dry yeast is too fresh, cracks form in the challah and bread, so reduce the amount of yeast until it has been stored for a little while. - I store the yeast in a tightly sealed jar (lock&lock) in the kitchen cupboard. - Sugar helps the dough rise, but sweet dough needs a little more yeast. - The proportions of water and flour are very important, so I use digital scales for the flour and always use the same disposable cups or a measuring cup. - Vegetable oil: for an "airy" dough with large holes, you need very little oil—just 1-2 tablespoons. If you want a denser loaf, you need more oil—a quarter of a cup. - For mezonot roll dough, I use a regular challah recipe, but omit the sugar and replace most of the water with white grape juice or natural apple juice.
Bread Machine Recipes:
Mezonot RollsWhite Bread with Ground Flaxseed
and, of course, Challah Loaves