I’ve been experimenting with a bread machine, a Panasonic, trying to work out whether it’s a dependable piece of essential kitchen equipment or if it’s another gadget like the juicer and the yoghurt maker that sounds like a good idea at first – “just imagine, fresh bread in the morning” – but actually becomes another needy machine that has to be understood, tweaked, waited patiently over and cleaned in the name of simplicity and ease. I’m getting to the limit of my machine tolerance, so David has taken over and started writing his own bread recipes for it while I’m working through bread machine trials of different breads and dough for a review we’ll hope to publish later.
This bread machine is wooing me much more than I thought it would, and it has some curious benefits that I didn’t expect plus a few really annoying points that they gloss over in the ads, but I’ll save all that for the review.
David follows recipes sometimes and then – without warning – he’ll lob in extra flour, seeds, anything in the name of “using it up” and then we get a mutant bread when we open the lid. That was the case with his last loaf. The top crust sat about 5cm lower than it should in the machine so that was a warning, and the crust had that look it gets when the gluten starts to disintegrate and the surface starts to pull apart and collapse.
So when I banged the baking container over the cooling rack this brick of a loaf fell out. It had this rich ruddy brown crust and big reassuring aroma, but the weight made me think it could be a stomach scourer from a health-food shop. The sort Dr Kellogg would have loved.
Once it had cooled I stuck it in the bread bin and toyed with what to say when David asked me what I thought of it. Do you do that? Almost plan the escape route before the inevitable tricky question is raised. It wasn’t until this morning that he asked me, “what did you think of the loaf?”
I ummed a bit and said, “It’s like an old-fashioned health loaf from the Doris Grant school of baking. I mean, it’s good but very solid and firm.”
Then I thought I’d at least taste it before damning it further. I went down to the kitchen to make some cheese on toast. There was some gruyere left over from a Guardian recipe I was testing so I cut two slices of the loaf, grilled each on one side plain then flipped them over and put a good handful of grated cheese with some cubes of chorizo mixed in on each then slipped them back under the grill to melt and blister. The taste was glorious and the bread the star. If it had been a white loaf there would have been none of that rich nutty flavour that stopped it tasting fatty and dull. Just a few twists of black pepper on the top and it was perfection.
I apologised, I was wrong. Judging the bread by the crust, whilst it might tell you what the inner appearance will be like, will tell you zilch about the flavour. This was the bread you’d want with herrings, oxtail, smoked salmon or blue cheese. It mightn’t suit a sausage sandwich but melt some cheese on top and it was the business.
Cover it with a slice of cheese and spread it with piccalilli, or top it with some fried herring roe with a little lemon and parsley, or just buttered on a plate with a good beetroot soup and sour cream, and that’s a perfect meal for me. Might even have some for dinner this evening.
Do you ever jump too quickly and judge a loaf a failure before it has a chance to cool? There’s a lesson in there I need to learn. Here was a great bit of baking that I would have missed out on by being too much of a snob about heavy bread. This might even set off an episode of competitive baking between us, in search of other heavy breads. I’m thinking of something wholemeal, with sunflower seeds and crisp fried onions.
Remembered highlight of the week: the time we met Gordon Brown at the Mumsnet 10th anniversary party held at Google HQ. Chatted about baking and the Julie/Julia movie.
