Good Bread-Machine Bread, Whisk Style

Put a bread machine to work for home-baked bread with very little work and without heating up your home. Just dump wholesome, organic ingredients into the baking cylinder, set the timer so it bakes at night, then wake up to fresh bread for toast and sandwiches.

Here's how to make Good Whisk Bread in a Dak or Welbilt bread machine.

You can use this recipe in other machines that call for about 3 1/2 cups of flour per loaf. Check the directions for your machine. Some bread machines call for the liquid ingredients to be added first.

See below the recipe to learn what a bread machine costs and what it saves.

 

Good Bread-Machine Bread, Whisk Style

Active time: 5 minutes. Total time: 3 hours. One loaf with about 16 half-moon slices.

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 teaspoons rapid-rise or instant yeast (one packet)
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (240 grams)
• 1 1/4 cup white whole wheat flour (150 grams)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons honey
• 1/4 cup untoasted wheat germ (32 grams)
• 1 1/2 cup water

Method

1. Put all ingredients into the bread machine in the order listed and close the lid. You don't need to grease the pan. Set the baking cycle to white bread, set the timer if desired, and turn the machine on. (I set the timer for 4 a.m. so it's had a chance to cool and stabilize before I slice it at six.)
2. When the bread has finished baking, remove the cylinder and pop out the loaf.
   
   
   
   
3. Hook your finger through the hole in the paddle and pull it out.
4. Slice and enjoy! The bottom two slices will have indentations from the paddle, but just slice along the paddle line to make them barely noticeable.
5. Keep at room temperature for about four days wrapped in a tea towel or a plastic bag.

About Bread Machines and the Wildly Affordable Organic Kitchen

You may recall from my book that I had a miserable failure the first night of the Cook for Good experiment because I used the wrong type of yeast in my bread machine. And you may also recall that I spent three months developing the Good Whisk Bread recipe so you don't need to have a bread machine to make healthy, delicious bread at home without having to pay for a bread machine. But these marvelous machines cost less than you might think and pay for themselves quickly.

What bread machines cost

You can scrimp ($58) or splurge ($250) on a new bread machine. Want a faster payback? Get one for $30 or less on eBay, through Craig's List, at a thrift store, or at a yard sale.  You may be able to get one in exchange for few loaves of bread if you ask around: who knows how many of your Facebook pals have one gathering dust? 

What bread machines save

• Save about two dollars a loaf making organic bread at home. Two dollars for five minutes of work: that's $60 an hour! And you can do it in your PJs while listening to the music of your choice.
• Save energy by heating up a very targeted area instead of your whole oven. There's no pre-heating, so all that heat doesn't whoosh out into your kitchen when you open the oven door.
• You'll gain flexibility: set the bread machine to bake while you are asleep or at work (after reading any fire-hazard warnings in the instructions). I feel like Judy Jetson waking up to bot-made bread!
• You'll save time. Hand-made Good Whisk Bread takes twenty minutes for two loaves and about eighteen minutes if you cut the recipe in half to just make one loaf. Making a loaf of bread machine bread takes just 5 minutes because you don't grease the pan, don't stir, don't kneed, and don't shape. In fact, making bread-machine bread takes less time than dashing to the store to buy a loaf.
• You'll save your hands and wrists. If you ache from arthritis or overuse, let the bread machine do the kneading. When I hurt my shoulder last year, I let the bread machine do the hard work, then I just shaped the bread, let it rise again, and baked it in the the oven.

Comments

[Shannon Christensen]

I didn't have time today to do the whisk/wait to rise... So I did the bread machine way. Loaf tasted good, but it caved in. Any suggestions? Too much water? I started with the liquids (stirred salt and honey into liquid) then put the dry flour on top with yeast.

[Linda Watson]

Sorry to hear about the cave-in, Shannon! Whether to stir and what order to use for the ingredients depends on your bread machine. With my Dak / Wellbilt one, I add the water last. Sometimes with other recipes if the bread rises too much, it hits the that weird hook thing that you can see in the picture above and collapses, but I haven't had that trouble with this recipe. If this is the case, try it with less yeast, maybe just two teaspoons.

For another possible clue, look at the directions on your yeast package. If it says to mix yeast with water before using, it's not the type that works with most (any?) bread machine recipes. Also check the date to see if it has expired.

Let me know if any if these do the trick! ... Linda

[frann]

The bread machine recipe came out fantastic! My bread machine died so we had no post mortum as it served me well for years....it was an Oster....found another on e bay...a Welbilt....I prefer this machine over my last. It is interesting how they work differently....I like the shape better also....It was a real steal for $25.00 on e bay but the postage was alot...still worth it next to the cost of a machine. For those that have their bread sink in I read in the Welbilt manual to add a teaspoon of lemon juice and it worked well for me. The timer went on my machine so that was causing the bread rising to be affected. Try the lemon juice and see if it helps!