ELECTRIC BREAD

I have always loved the idea of hearth baked artisan breads with cornmeal and nut crusts, powdery top slits leading into squishy soft slices all slathered in butter ..yummy. I didn’t want some dry, tasteless, cold commercial bread, I wanted chewy, fresh hot butter melting bread! 

When our daughter became vegan our bread life changed (well our whole life changed, but for now we will just stick to the bread part) forget the cow butter, forget coupons, forget brand loyalty, forget what’s on sale, it’s now a matter of what’s in it and how/where is it produced. We needed dairy free bread, we wanted bread with limited ingredients, local if possible, 0 preservatives & nothing artificial and on top of that it had to taste good. Me, I wanted easy, I wanted diversity and I wanted fresh bread in the dead of summer.

In walks a bread machine, yes the expensive contraption that was all the rage back in the 90’s. Except now it’s a bit cheaper, a bit quieter, a bit smaller and it doesn’t shimmy itself off the counter. I can have hot fresh-baked bread in 3 hrs or I can timer it the night before and wake up to the smell of baking bread, I can have perfectly supple “turn it into anything thing I want” dough in 1½ hours, all just by putting the ingredients into a metal bucket and pushing START.  I don’t have to knead, I don’t have to cover and let rise in a warm place, I can make 1½ or 2 lb loaves, I can even make quick breads & jams in this thing! In the winter I set the machine for the dough cycle, let it go, then pop it into a loaf pan and bake it in my oven to warm up the house. Did I tell you I LOVE ELECTRIC BREAD!