Important Benefits of Bread Machines

Reader Contribution by Loretta Sorensen
Published on January 23, 2019
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The first few times I used my new bread machine, I completed the entire baking cycle in it.

However, as my baking skill improved, I really wanted to produce “traditionally” shaped loaves and bake my bread in a bread pan. I know now that mixing and kneading my dough in the bread machine, then baking it in my oven, is extremely easy and effective, producing beautiful loaves.

Not only is using a bread machine for mixing and kneading more of a “hands off” process than using a mixer, the bread machine does a very thorough job of kneading and maintains a consistent temperature in the canister that makes your yeast happy!

Since I barely used the first bread machine I was gifted some 20 years ago, I can’t speak about its ability to thoroughly mix and knead bread dough. However, the Hamilton Beach bread machine I purchased in December 2017, on a 2-pound regular cycle, mixed and kneaded the bread dough for 15 minutes at a time two different times. That’s far more kneading than I’ve ever done in the past.

While each bread machine brand may vary in cycle options and the length of kneading and rest times, you can manually manage the length of time your machine kneads the dough by stopping and starting the machine to set kneading times. You can also adjust the dough’s rest time for the first rise if you wish.

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