I picked up my (well, I should say "our", but I get a feeling it'll mostly be my new toy, seeing as how I'm currently a widow to Empire: Total War) brand-new bread maker today! It's a nice little Euro Lab, gotten cheaply off Deals Direct.



My original plan for the inaugural loaf was to use a recipe that came with the machine, but none did. Fortunately, I had done a bit of homework, and copied down a recipe (or three) from Bread Machine Easy, by Sara Lewis. I have every intention of buying this book, but I just bought my machine, it'll have to wait a week or two. That said, prepare for the inaugural loaf!

Note: As this recipe is from a non-Australian (I think it's British, but I'm not certain) cook book, and therefore uses differently-sized tablespoons (the Australian is 20mL, everywhere else uses 15mL), I've converted everything to mL to save confusion. (Although my nifty new machine came with a 15mL tablespoon measure, which is very useful.) For anyone who doesn't prefer metric, at the bottom of the page are two gadgets which should make your life easier - one's a plain old converter, and the other converts entire recipes (in theory, anyway, I've yet to try it).

Healthy White Bread
750g loaf

• 255mL warm water
• 30mL sunflower oil
• 5mL salt (yes, this is a teaspoon everywhere metric, but I'm being pedantic here.)
• 400g white baking flour (it has a higher gluten content than normal flour)
• 40g toasted wheatgerm
• 50g quinoa flakes
• 15mL honey
• 10.25mL fast-action dried baker's yeast (2.5 teaspoons, for anyone wondering.)
  

First, insert the mixing paddle. Then, add all the wet ingredients (the first 3).



Then, add the flours and random healthy things. I admit, I have no idea what quinoa is, and I bought raw instead of toasted wheatgerm by mistake, but this didn't seem to make a difference to the bread.







Make a well in the flours, then add the honey and yeast into it.



Put the pan into the machine, and put it on the appropriate settings.



Ms Lewis recommends 750g fast/rapid. Since my machine had 3 different fast settings, I chose Ultra-Fast 2 (which is the same as Ultra-Fast 1, but for the larger loaf size). Fast said it was for recipes which called for baking powder, which this doesn't. I also set it to a medium darkness of crust, to be on the safe side. Then, turn it on and wait for it to be done (while taking photos, of course!).

Just starting to stir:



The dough:



One hour later: Kneading is done, the dough is rising and smells really good. Unfortunately, the combination of a flash and my amateur photography skills means the photo doesn't really work. Trust me on this.

Two hours later: I realise it was probably done half an hour ago, and it smells good.



A note for future reference: the tops of loaves baked in bread machines don't darken. The sides, however, were a lovely golden colour.



My husband volunteered to be my hand model for this (he may have been lured away from gaming by the smell of freshly baked bread):





The bread was scientifically proven to be delicious both as bruschetta, and as cheesy toast.





All in all, the loaf was a success, as you can see from our ample leftovers, and was given an overall rating of 7/10 while hot. How good is it while cold? No clue, but I'm sure we'll find out eventually.