Thursday, April 24, 2008

I Am a Cheat













I am cheating with my Panasonic Breadmaker, or is it not cheating? Anyway, when you wake up in the morning to the aroma of newly-baked bread coming up from the kitchen, you know you are in for a good day. I have heard of estate agents recommending vendors put on the coffee machine before a viewing because of its alluring powers, but I say it would work equally well with a breadmaker, nice ‘n easy. Aaahh!

When I was younger (sounds sad doesn’t it?) there was a period when I used to bake all my bread completely manually. My son loved it and the bread did not last very long, which was the best compliment. However it was time consuming and in the end became too much, so I gradually started buying bread again. Then a few years ago I bought this wonderful machine, a Panasonic Breadmaker, which I found, after some research, was regarded the best on the market. And boy does it bake some lovely loaves! Perfect result every time. I have tried some German bread mixes as well but they were not always reliable, not consistent in output quality. When I stick to the Panasonic booklet’s recipes I always get fantastic results. Does it not look mouth-watering? Can you smell it?





11 comments:

Lynda said...

hmmm smells lovely

I got a breadmaker for Mother's day a few years back... not happy... but it grew on me and now I love it. Excellent for pizza dough and mine will even whip up a batch of jam.

Meike The Dutchlady said...

I use my breadmaker all the time. The bread tastes so much better than what I can buy in the store here. Unfortunately, the price of flour keeps rising and rising...

swenglishexpat said...

Lynda - how about combining the bread with the jam in the machine, possible? ;-) I should really try pizza dough though. I'll check the booklet. Thanks for reminding me.

Kieny - yes, I agree it does taste better, and you know exactly what you have put in yourself!. Sad about the price.

christina said...

Noooo, not cheating at all! I make all different kinds of bread dough (pizza, baguettes, whole wheat, sweet rolls etc) in my machine but I like to shape and bake it the regular way when it's ready. The German bread mixes I've tried turned out kind of weird and doughy and not really to our liking so I use my own recipes instead.

1st Lady said...

Mmmmmmmm looks good! I bake scones, thats it really. Can't beat fresh bread though! Realtors here also put cookie dough in the oven when they have open houses.

swenglishexpat said...

Christina - yes, maybe I should venture past the relatively few pages with bread recipes and try a greater variety. I actually made pizza dough yesterday, but realised I could have thinned it out much more into two pizzas! We like them thin and crisp.

1st Lady - cookie dough, hmm, I can imagine a sweet smell filling the house. Well, if it works...

CanadianSwiss said...

THAT is the next machine coming into our kitchen - as soon as we have space, that is. We have many gadgets and we use them all pretty often, so I can't think of aything I cold get rid of.

But there's NOTHING like homemade bread. Olive bread, nut bread, thyme bread, .... Mmmmmmmm!

Haddock said...

Our current bread maker is on its way out slowly but surely (This is our second machine), but we will now replace it with a Panasonic one! :)

Rositta said...

I have one of those too and used it every second day...until I discovered a recipe for no knead bread. Love the smell of bread baking...ciao

swenglishexpat said...

CS - well you simply have to build an extension! ;-)
Haddock - good choice!
Rositta - when I read your words ' no knead bred' I can see the potential for a funny kitchen sketch full of misunderstandings!

Rositta said...

Grrr, I don 't often make spelling mistakes, lol...ciao