Originally Posted by
Machka
My father has been using a bread machine to make his own bread for years. It takes him a few minutes to mix the ingredients and put it in the machine, and not that long to wash up after ... and he produces about one loaf of bread each week. He has created his own variation on a standard recipe, and will use extra bits and pieces for some variety (like throwing in a little flax seed, or ground up sunflower seeds, or I think he used the last bit of a whole grain porridge in there once, etc.). I believe his recipe also takes slightly sour milk ... so when the milk is starting to going bad, rather than dumping it, he uses it in the bread.
I've been bread-making for many years. However, I have never used a bread machine. I'm still confused as to why you need one... if you have an oven! [unless there is some cost savings with it...but I suspect it really more like a Croc-pot in terms of cost to run...]
Usually, I make enough enough for two pizzas and two loaves of bread. I normally do this every weekend and we all seem to enjoy the result.
I think you are all right about the cost of bread. Good bread costs about $4.50 now for a 1.5 pound loaf. I can make bread for quite a bit less than that. [Although it might be $8 a loaf if you include the electricity need to bake it
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