Baking

One of my Christmas gifts was a new bread machine. I gave it a go this week and I'm so pleased with the results. It is very similar to my old machine, I mean the baking pan is exactly the same other than colour. Which makes me think that it's the same company with a new name or been bought out or something of that nature. It is a newer model though because I have had my old one for quite a few years now, this one has new baking modes that the old one either didn't have or I didn't realise because of the way it's menu worked. This one has a 'french bread' mode which I am so excited about.

American bread is usually quite sweet, they have this awful habit of putting high fructose syrup in their bread, there are a few brands that don't but buying fresh bread is always a bit of a gamble. Some supermarkets (or as they are usually called here, grocery stores) bake their bread sweet, others not so much. but all are quite dense and firm, none have crispy crusts. Even french bread here doesn't have crusts that crack and make a big mess when you slice into them. Usually the crust is tough and chewy.

Since I've lived here the one meal I have really missed is a plain old cheese and onion sandwich on soft fluffy just baked bread with a crispy crust. Well now with my new machine I can have just that. baking European bread isn't about the recipe it's about the proving time and the cooking time and my new bread machine does just that... Yay😁