What's Cookin'?

Last year I inherited a bread machine from one of the staff members who moved to a new posting.  This weekend I decided it was about time I figured out how to use the thing and get baking.

The process was a bit involved, as the machine is now on its fourth or fifth owner, and I needed to find a manual.  One internet search and a few wrong turns later, I found one which had manufacture's recipes in it.  I figured these were the "blessed", verified and hard to mess up versions of what to do with a bread machine, so I started with one.

I made a one pound honey-oat loaf on the lightest crust setting.  I started with the smallest loaf and the lightest crust to see what that would be feeling confident that I would get an idea of how to alter it from there.

The loaf was okay.  A bit light for my taste, as I like a dense seedy bread normally, but a nice change from the French bread that is so prevalent here. Because the texture was so ... open ... when I cut it it had strange nooks and crannies (like you'd find on an English Muffin) that, when toasted, cut up the roof of my mouth pretty badly.

I made a 1.5 lb. cinnamon raisin oat bread on the medium crust setting two nights ago.  This loaf was the same physical size, but the texture was much denser.  It was easier to cut with my lousy bread knife and was way better as toast.  I can see this being the kind of bread that I make for things like french toast and so on.

I'm interested to try a 2 lb. loaf next, but I'm not entirely sure the machine I have will handle it.  Because I've had to find a manual on-line, I'm not entirely sure I have the right one for my particular model number.  It's close, but maybe it's the 1-1.5 lb. loaf machine, but it also could be the 1-2 lb. loaf machine...  Hard telling not knowing, you know?

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