Breadmaker Bread

I've been making all our bread for years, and have worn out many breadmakers doing so. (I get my bread machines at thrift stores) I've used this basic recipe and tweaked it to what it is now. I've used this recipe in larger machines that can handle 4 cup bread recipes. It makes 2 loaves. You can make adjustments as you go. For example, you can use all white flour, or 3 cups white and 1 cup whole wheat...whatever you feel like, as long as it adds up to 4 cups. Also sometimes you can add things for fibre like quinoa seeds, wheat germ, bran, flax seeds (ground, whole or both)...whatever you have on hand. I've even thrown in a bit of sunny boy type cereal. A teaspoon to tablespoon of each, depending on how many different ones you are using does the trick. If I'm putting alot of these fibre ingredients in the mix, I reduce the flour by a couple of tablespoons or even up to ¼ cup. Otherwise the dough becomes too stiff. This makes the bread heavy and it won't rise well. It also stresses the bread machine. If you hear the machine working too hard, throw in a couple of tablespoons of water while its running to loosen it up the dough. You can also tweak the amount of sugar and salt slightly to get the flavour you like. But remember, both the salt and the sugar also affect how well the dough rises, so make adjustments by very small increments until you love the results.

Unbalanced

% Daily Values based on a 2,000 calorie diet