Bread Machine Recipe Exchange

Let’s use this space to share and discuss bread machine baking - recipes, notes and tips.

I’ll start. I have a Zojirushi mini, which makes 1 lb. loaves. I purchased it recently, after not having a bread machine for well over a decade. I wish I had kept my recipes from that original trip down the rabbit hole, but I didn’t. Soon after being gifted that original machine, which was my gateway to bread baking, I discovered sourdough, and thought I would never use a bread machine again. Ha ha! Time and arthritis will take you places.

My new machine came with a recipe for French bread. It makes for a fine sandwich loaf, and is something I have made repeatedly. If I’m not using the timer, I’ll add 50 g. sourdough discard to the liquid (reducing the flour and water accordingly). I would hesitate to add discard using the timer, however, as it tends to separate, and I’d be concerned the addition of flour to the liquid might clog the paddle.

FRENCH BREAD – 1 LB. LOAF

194 g. water

293 g. bread flour

6 g. granulated sugar

6 g. powdered milk

5 g. granulated salt

1 t. ADY (I used ¾ t. instant yeast)

French Bread

This next recipe – a 100% whole wheat sandwich loaf with add-ins – has taken several tries to get right. It’s from Beth Hensperberger’s *The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook* P. 71.

My first loaf ballooned up, and then collapsed, the result of a large air pocket at the top. I monkied around with the amount of instant yeast, and finally settled on 1 t. (the original recipe calls for 1.5 t.). Zojirushi says to limit the addition of small seeds to 20 g., I used 30 g. with no issues. Also, just before the bake cycle starts, I go in and brush the top with a little water, and sprinkle with a few more seeds and grains. If using the timer, I would sub powdered milk (and water) for fresh.

SAMPLER HONEY WHOLE WHEAT

¾ c. milk

2 T. honey

1 T. salted butter

200 g. whole wheat flour

30 g. bread flour

1 T. VWG

1 t. granulated salt

1 ½ t. instant yeast < - - - I use 1 t.

30 g. seed blend *not original to the recipe

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Woot - I have the same machine so I would love some proven recipes that work well for that machine too.
I find the recipes in their booklet to be hit or miss. My dearest recipe wish list is for anadama bread. I’ve tried two online and they didn’t adapt well for this machine; perhaps it needs more tweaking on my end - both times it comes out way too dense (even denser than anadama should be).

I had a decent recipe for milk bread (with the tangzhong starter), but I’ll have to dig that out. To be honest, this has probably sat in my pantry for the last year, so it feels time to dig this out for some fresh bread.

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I have a couple of books. I’ll check and see if there’s a recipe for Amadama Bread. My mother used to bake that (in an oven) - I can smell it now. :blush:

Don’t forget the Internet Archive when looking for cookbooks - 183 search results for “bread machine” and most of them available to check out for free online.

I have an older Breadman, and I love trying bread machine recipes because there are some pretty creative flavor combinations out there! I’ve tried about 100 recipes by now, and have noticed that there’s varying quality of cookbooks, so sharing here some of what I’ve learned about that:

Some of the best recipes I’ve tried:

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Thank you for all the links! That KAF WW recipe looks very similar to the Hensperger recipe I am using. I will try it with the sourdough starter.

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The two books I have are Beth Hensperger’s The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook and Michelle Anderson’s No Fuss Bread Machine Cookbook. The former is a classic; I haven’t yet tried anything from the latter.

Hensperger offers a recipe for an un-yeasted Anadama Bread. This may not be what you’re looking for, but if it’s of interest, let me know, and I’ll DM you a photo of the recipe.

Have you tried a straight-up sourdough loaf in your bread machine yet? It won’t be like the nice ones you made by hand and in the oven, but I wonder if you’ve found one that works well for what it is.

I have not made a true sourdough in my machine. I understand some machines have a setting that accomodates one, but mine is not one of those, and I haven’t had the opportunity to explore whether I can make one using the “homemade” settings.

In the meantime, KAF has a recipe for a BM sourdough using a yeast spike, and I might try that soon:

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A dried-apple-pecan-cinnamon loaf From Beth Hensperger’s The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook P. 446.

This one calls for bread flour, buttermilk, brown sugar, fruit, nuts and cinnamon.

My first time doing the add-ins manually, I read a lot of opinions on how to do it or not to do it. I hedged my bets, and kneaded half of them in manually after the first mechanized knead, patted another ¼ of them on to the top of the loaf after returning it to the machine, and then added the final 1/4th about 3 minutes into the second mechanized knead. The add-in chime rang about two minutes after I was all done. It may have been over-thinking on my part, but I did want the add-ins well distributed and it seems to have worked.

I reduced the yeast for a 1-lb. loaf from 1 ½ t. to 1 ¼ t., and otherwise no other changes. The bread is delicious and the recipe a keeper, although I will probably add that ¼ t. of yeast back in and hope for just a slightly better rise.

The original recipe for a 2-lb. loaf:

1 ½ c. buttermilk

2 ½ T. walnut oil

4 c. bread flour

¼ c. light brown sugar

1 T. +1 t. vital wheat gluten

1 ½ t. table salt

1 T + 1 t. ground cinnamon

2 ½ t. SAF yeast (or 1 T. bread machine yeast)

2/3 c. chopped dried apples

½ c. chopped pecans

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Just FYI and for @kobuta.

While doing some research today, I found another (yeasted) recipe for Anadama bread in the bread machine:

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Thank you! I will take a look. Busy at work, so I’ll try to pull up some recipes this weekend.

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My beloved DAK c. 1990. When I was preggers with the two rugrats, I developed a baaaad case of carpel tunnel syndrome and could not knead bread. I was a ceramics instructor at the time and couldn't do that with clay, either. My MIL gifted this to me and I used it mostly for getting the bread dough through the kneading process for pizza, rolls and pulla. Alot of the recipes in this book were odd, some were failures, but the best recipe to me and my very favorite was DAK's recipe for his 'Drew's Famous Onion Dill Bread'. Swoon worthy and when toasted and spread with some softened butter or cream cheese, was divine. It also was a hit at parties, sliced in half rounds. One day it up and died, the company was out of business and the little R2D2 went to the drama department to be used as a prop. The recipe is very similar to other onion/dill bread recipes and can transcribe the basic ingredients if requested. This is the perfect time of year for it, too!
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Gotta love the internet. Is this it?

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That’s it!
One of my notes on the recipe page, I wrote that it rose too high and was uncooked in the top and middle. That may have been from a watery cottage cheese. I generally use fat free cottage cheese, but at that time it may have been the regular stuff. Another note suggests to eliminate the water in the recipe. I used a combo of the dill seed and dried dill weed and I don’t recall spreading butter on the top at baking time but possibly when it was done. Goodness, I need to make a loaf or two, soon!

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Thanks for starting this thread! Question about the French bread recipe you posted - do you use the French Bread setting on the machine? Or the regular bread setting?

You are welcome!

On my machine it is called “Course 2 - European”.

Hope that helps!

Thanks!

So this was my attempt at adapting a tangzhong milk bread recipe for the Zojirushi mini breadmaker. This is reasonably close to a good loaf to me, but I admit my hand made one (sans machine) were better.

You have to make the tangzhong separately before hand, and this is more than what’s needed for 1 loaf ( makes 2 one lb loaves).

Tangzhong Starter
3 Tbsp bread flour
0.5 cup whole milk or water
Heat in a small sauce pan on low heat, stirring until you get to 65C and they form a paste (like smooth oatmeal).

Set aside and let cool to room temperature. Cover with plastic wrap, to avoid forming a skin on the surface. You will only use half for the loaf.

Milk Bread for 1 lb loaf
1.5 cups of bread flour
0.5 cup of whole milk
1 egg
1.5 Tbsp sugar
2.5 Tbsp butter
1 tsp active yeast
0.5 tsp salt
Half of your cooled tangzhong starter

Follow instructions on the machine to add your wet and dry ingredients. Half of the cooled tangzhong starter will go in with the wet ingredients.

This is not a very crusty bread so I use the soft bread/crust bake setting.

I don’t love the big hole that this machine makes at the bottom of my loaf (and I find a bit too much flour sometimes at the bottom too) so I’ve thought about using this recipe and only using the machine through the kneading part, and letting this rise and bake in my oven. Will have to report.

I futzed with the flour amount a few times, and I think I landed at 1.5. If it’s too loose or too hard to your liking, adding/reducing the amount by 0.25 cups.

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Thanks for posting the recipe!

I recently read on the KAF site that you can remove the paddles before baking. If you scroll down to Tip #3 of the following article, there it is. I haven’t tried it, but if I do, I will report back:

That’s so surprising to me. How does it knead and turn if that paddle is gone? :thinking: