I got a bread machine at last WAHOOOOO! It is ridiculous how excited I have been over this bread machine. I feel like so many women of my age would say at this point ‘is this what has become of me?’ but lets be completely honest my love of cooking and cooking gadget geekery was born a long time ago. However I live quite frugally and I am not one to splurge on myself, so this was actually a present from a good friend for my 32nd birthday just past.
For a while now it has been on my mind how I can cut out more preservatives from my families diets, and shop bought bread was a contribution to this. It wasn’t so much because I was concerned they do xyz to our bodies but because we simply do not know what they do to our bodies. There is a lot of hear-say about what they do but no real trustworthy research. As someone who has spent most of my life with auto-immune disease avoiding ingesting anything that isn’t obviously food just makes sense at this point.
Beyond health and nutrition motivations to make our own bread, I am driven by the daydream of slow living, getting back to basics and making all of our food from scratch. Having a bread machine has been a great way experience a bit of that whilst still fitting in with everything else in our life.
What is your motivation for home baking?
Have you ever considered the effects of preservatives in food?
Or are you drawn to the idea of slow living?
Satisfyingly delicious vegan bread recipe, with the perfect crunchy crust and fluffy crumb balance.
Refer to your own machine manufactures guidance for settings before making this recipe.
Ingredients
- 1 cup Water * 4 tbsp oil * 420g Bread flour (3 1/2 cups) * 1 tbsp maple syrup *1 tsp salt * 7g (2 1/4tsp) bread machine suitable yeast
Directions
- Firstly warm up the cup of water for 30s in the microwave so it is a nice tepid warm. 2. Next put the water, oil, sugar and salt into the bread pan (make sure your blade is in) 3. Next gently put all the flour in making sure it is evenly covering the liquid (this will act as a barrier between the yeast and sugar)
- Now pour the yeast on top
- Place the bread pan into your machine and set it to go on the basic setting for a medium loaf (this might vary slightly with your machine)
I used a Russell Hobbs classic fast bake bread machine.