Further Adventures With My Bread Machine

I hadn’t planned to make bread tonight in my wonderful new bread machine. Not even after getting a copy of the recipe book in the mail from the manufacturer, to replace the one that should have been included but wasn’t. But the felines had other ideas.

Well, I don’t know if they intended the bread-making. But someone – or multiple someones – decided to fang open the packet of bread mix that was sitting on top of the machine waiting for me to try it. It had been packed as a sample with the machine, ready to go – just add water and the separate packet of yeast for a one-pound loaf.

I came downstairs to the kitchen to find flour dusted on the countertop in front of the machine. The plastic bag of bread mix lay there, ripped in two places. I sighed, opened it further, and dumped the contents into a bowl. I was about to throw it out – after all, it was 11:30 p.m. – but decided, what the heck? Very little of the mix had been lost, and I could make it up with some bread flour.

So I decided to go ahead. Threw in an egg just for the heck of it. I was about to measure out the water when a Bright Idea struck me. There on the counter sat the remains of the vanilla cappucino I’d bought that morning. I poured it into a measuring cup. Hmmmm… about a third to a half a cup. I topped it off with water to the amount called for in the instructions and dumped it into the baking pan; poured the bread mix on top of it; went to add the yeast packet – oh. No yeast packet. Had the felines made off with it? Oh, well. I measured out a teaspoonful from my yeast jar and tossed that in. Set it for Basic Medium and pressed Start.

The machine lurched into action. After five minutes of the kneading cycle, I checked the dough ball. Hmmmm… too battery-looking. The instructions said add more flour, a bit at a time. So I did, watching the flopping, twisting dough gradually take on a more respectable consistency. I must say, the vanilla-coffee aroma rising from the dough was quite alluring.

That was… um, about an hour ago as I write this, at 1:00+ a.m. The dough is rising now. I think it’s on the second rising. Still got the 50-minute baking cycle to go. Still has a nice aroma of vanilla and coffee. It should be interesting to see how it comes out.

At 2:30 in the morning my senses aren’t the sharpest, but I can report that fresh and warm from the machine it had a nicely faint sweet coffee aroma and taste. Now at quarter of 10:00 this morning – yeh, I slept late – it’s still good. The coffee flavor is subtle, and there’s a hint of bitterness from it that plays off the sweetness intriguingly. The texture is wonderful and the loaf turned out to be substantial in size yet light rather than dense and heavy.

I might even try making it again.

Mmm. I <3 bread. I want a bread machine, sort of. I know I wouldn’t use it very often after the first week if I got one. But I do like to bake.