March 29, 2015

Weekend Cooking: (150 Recipes for Your Bread Machine by Jennie Shapter)


ISBN-13: 9781780193403
Publisher: Anness Publishing Ltd
Publication Date: 7 January 2015
Format: Paperback, 256 pgs
Source: Purchased



Speaking of kitchen gadgets, the majority of us would usually think that it's always the women who buy them, right? Well, I did most of the decisions when it comes to buying our kitchen gadgets (the Hubs just need to pay the costs, ha!), so can you imagine how surprised I was when he carried a box from the office one day (last year, or is it the previous year?) and informed me that he bought a bread machine (his colleague bought it for him actually. He claimed it was cheaper back in his home town.) 

Well, I love breads and pastries but making them is entirely a different matter. My husband said as long as we follow the instructions and the manual given, it shouldn't be a problem. I told him then that maybe he can give it a go first. So we bought all the ingredients and I watched him putting things together like a chef supervising her student (if only!). Anyway, it looks easy since we only need to put all the ingredients in and let the machine do its job. I remember the sweet aroma of the bread that filled the house then and I was mesmerised. Alas, our interest lasted for a few months (since we made the same bread most of the time and the recipes in the manual is limited) and we are back to buying breads. 

The other day when I was browsing at a book store, I came across this cookbook about bread machine recipes. I bought the book and told my husband it's about time we should 'resurrect' the bread machine. As I flipped through that cookbook, I was not only captured by the pictures but also the introductions of the various types of ingredients and step-by-step methods serve to be useful and informative especially for novice like me. What's more, they also included topics such as "Getting down to basics", "How to use your bread machine", "Baking, cooling and storing", "Glazes and Toppings", "Getting the best from your machine", "Troubleshooting" (Oh yes!), etc. And oh, it also has a complete nutritional analysis of every recipe too! 

While I haven't tried making any breads from this cookbook (first I need to get that bread machine from our storeroom), I thought I'd highlight this book to you and make a list of some of the categories they have in here: 

• Basic breads
• Specialty grains
• Flatbreads and pizzas
• Sourdoughs and starter dough breads
• Savoury breads
• Vegetable breads
• Rolls, buns and pastries
• Sweet breads and yeast cakes
• Teabreads and cakes 

Linking this to:


Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads and is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. For more information, see the welcome post

10 comments:

  1. That looks like a super book. I use my bread machine all the time. I usually take the dough out and bake it in the oven (better shape and crust), but I love the convenience and ease of using it to knead and rise the dough.

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    1. Beth - I don't have a conventional oven so having a bread machine is a wonder to me! Yes, kneading and rising the dough can be a tiring task.

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  2. Living in a small apartment, alas a bread machine is too much of a space luxury for me.

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    1. Diane - I know, and that sucks, isn't it?

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  3. I have a fear of yeast. Well, not really, but I'm always paranoid about what one needs to do with it and so my attempts at bread and rolls and such have not been very successful. I think I could put ingredients into a machine. Maybe. LOL

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    1. Kay - Ah yes, yeast is a tricky part! I remember our first attempt was a disaster.

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  4. We don't have a bread maker but my husband does have a book on making bread and he's made some delicious breads from the recipes. I should remind him that he needs to get that book out again and make us some bread :)

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    1. Iliana - Yes! And then you should share that post with us. ;-)

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  5. I had a bread machine at one time, but, like you, got bored with it and gave it to my daughter. Some would consider me to be in a bread rut, but I like the one I make consistently, a rough country loaf of sourdough, baked about once a week.

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    Replies
    1. Claudia - Hmm... sounds nice about those breads you make! Hope your daughter has fun with your bread machine. :)

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