Month: March 2020

Table of Contents

• Rye
  • Bread
  • Rye Flour
  • Measurement and Ingredients
• Bread Machine Recipes
  • Published
    • Preset and Custom

Rye

Bread

Bread was made with rye flour in parts of Eurasia where rye grew and wheat did not, including the parts of Northern Europe, including the lands around the Baltic Sea. Rye has some protein, but does not produce enough gluten to rise like a leavened wheat bread.

Pumpernickel may refer to bread made from 100% rye flour, according to medieval recipes. These loaves are a specialty product. Many grocery stores sell commercially baked pumpernickel. It is flat, compact, usually brown or black. American rye bread recipes usually involve a blend of rye flour with wheat flour. Some recipes that are made with a blend of rye and wheat flour, (i.e. light rye bread), will make the crumb dark by including cocoa or coffee. This style may be called pumpernickel in any given recipe

There are some American recipes for a rustic style made with a large amount of rye flour, e.g.  King Arthur Classic Pumpernickel baked in an oven.  100% rye flour bread is not made with bread machines Some recipes made with a large amount of rye flour may suggest that dough can be mixed and kneaded in a bread machine.

There are industrial formulas and home recipes for light rye bread, baked in an oven. Most commercial and home made rye bread is made with wheat flour with rye flour or rye meal. Light rye breads are soft  breads, with fairly close crumb and a distinct dark crust – chewy but not crunchy. There are rustic rye and rye sourdough styles. There are deli styles and reconstructions of local bakery styles. Light rye recipes often produce torpedo shaped loaves rather than pan loaves. There is a Winnipeg style, a bread flour loaf with a small amount of rye flour and/or rye meal or chopped rye berries. The Winnipeg Free Press had recipes based on the rye bread baked by Winnipeg’s City Bread. There is a bread machine version that I have not tried.

Rye Flour

Rye flour has:

• less of the proteins that build gluten than wheat flour, and
• has pentosans. 

Peter Reinhart notes in The Bread Baker’s Apprentice at p. 185 that rye flour has different protein profile than wheat flour, and forms gluten differently, it uses glutelin to form gluten, unlike wheat flour which has glutenin. Reinhart also notes that rye flour has pentosans, which absorb water differently and make the dough gummy. According to Daniel DiMuzio’s Bread Baking, An Arisan’s Perspective:

• (p. 51) pentosans absorb water with very little mixing and are fragile, breaking down and releasing water after as little as 3-4 minutes of intensive mixing;
• (p. 51) bakers using mixing machines use a short period of slow mixing for dough with significant amounts of rye flour, and little intensive mixing;
• (p. 216) dough for deli-style light rye (70% white/30% rye) would be hydrated at 68% and mixed slowly: in a stand mixer, 3 minutes slow to blend ingredients and 3 minutes on second speed.

Measurement and Ingredients

Some recipes call for light or medium rye flour which is produced from rye endorsperm (i.e. not whole grain rye) with more screenings. Dark Rye flour uses more whole grain. Some bread machine recipes specifically call for it or treat it as an alternative.

There is a range of conversion weights, for different kinds of rye flour; there are variations of methodology of measuring a cup to weigh:

• Online Conversion’s converter and Aqua-Calc converter – 1 cup of dark rye flour = 4.5 oz. = 128 g.
• Bakery Network conversion chart – 1 cup “rye flour” = 4 oz. = 113 g.
• Aqua-Calc converter light rye flour (or medium rye flour) – 1 cup = 102 g = 3.6 oz.
• The Traditional Oven’s converter – 1 cup = 102 g. = 3.6 oz.  light rye?
• King Arthur Flour’s Ingredient Conversion chart – 1 cup = 3.625 oz.  light rye?

Anita’s Organic Mill Organic Rye Flour is available in 1 kg. bags in some local stores and online. This may be a better quantity to buy for flour used in 1 to 1.5 cup quantities than Rogers Dark Rye Flour, in 2.5 kg. bags. For both of those rye flours, the Canadian Nutrition Facts label indicates 1 cup = 120 grams = 4.2 oz. Nutrition Facts labels use values based on food data bases based on the measurement standards of their methology. Anita’s is about 120 grams a cup if settled and scooped to pack the cup. Rogers Foods Dark Rye Flour is available locally in 2.5 kg. bags, and priced as a staple.  Its Nutrition Facts label says ¼ cup weighs 30 g. Online Conversion’s converter and Aqua-Calc converter dark rye flour said 1 cup of dark rye flour = 4.5 oz. = 128 g.  This is the mean or average for dark rye flour surveyed in USDA data base. Rogers Dark Rye may be about 124 grams a cup, settled and scooped.

Rye bread often contains caraway seeds; consumers associate the flavour with rye bread. Caraway is related to cumin, fennel, anise, carrots, celery and parsley. Some varieties are known as Persian cumin. Caraway has been used as a cooking herb or spice since the time of the Roman Empire. It is a major spice in Central European cooking and in the nations beside the Baltic. It was adopted in Germany, the Nordic countries, the “Low” countries and England. Caraway seeds were/are used to make flavoured breads with white flour in Central European recipes. Cumin and caraway are the spices in spiced Dutch Kamijnekaas ¹literally “Cumin cheese” – Leiden Kaas and spiced Gouda. Other flavoring agents in baking light rye breads: fennel and anise seeds, chopped onion, dried orange peel, orange zest and orange oil. There are dark or sour light rye styles with bread flour, rye flour and:

• an agent (molasses, cocoa or ground coffee for home bakers) for dark colour,
• vinegar or sour cream for acidity, and
• corn meal, oatmeal or sunflower seeds for texture.

Bread Machine Recipes

Published

Many formulas and recipes for oven baked light rye are based on north European (German and Scandinavian) light rye bread recipes, with white flour and some rye flour or meal. Russians, Ukrainians and East Europeans also made light rye bread with a blend of white flour, whole wheat flour and rye flour.

Making a pumpernickel loaf with rye flour in a bread machine does not seem to be possible. Is light rye loaf possible

No bread machine manufacturers have programmed for it. Some bread machine manufacturers explicitly discourage baking with rye flour. Panasonic’s manual says rye flour leads to dense bread when used to replace other (wheat) flour in their recipes and warns that using rye flour might overload the motor. This does not explain the warning.

Modern machines have almost dropped rye from the manuals.

Baking with rye flour is different. Unless the mixing time is kept short, the rye flour will absorb and then release water and mix a dough that will not bake without issues. Modern bread machines don’t really work with rye flour, perhaps because of kneading action and the length of the mix/knead programs in modern machines.

The bread machine recipes for light rye bread in Beth Hensperger’s ambitious baking books, Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (at pp. 133-143, 313), and the Bread Bible use the basic bake or bake whole wheat programs for light rye. I have tried Swedish Rye Bread, a limpa style, from BLBMC, Scandinavian Light Rye, and Narsai’s Rye Bread. The latter is a bread machine recipes in Beth Hensperger’s Bread Bible. It gets a brown colour from molasses.

Those recipes use 1 cup or more rye flour and 1¼ cups of water in medium recipes with 2 cups of bread flour. The rye flour is over 30% of the total flour and the hydration is 70%. Those recipes worked in older machines.

When I baked light rye with BLBMC recipes in the Panasonic and Zojirushi, the machine mixed a dough that looked reasonable in the first 10 minutes of kneading, but was wet by the end of knead time. It rises; when it falls at the knockdowns, it leaves a wet dough residue clinging to the pan which bakes as cracker or flat bread against the edge of pan. This result is produced by a combination of kneading, and over-generous hydration.

The BLBMC recipes do not work in many machines. Modern machines designed to attract buyers work with bread flour and often with “gluten-free” recipes which many users hope to bake,

Preset and Custom

There are recipes, with modest amounts of rye flour, among the recipes included in manuals for machines I have used:

• Bread with Caraway and Onions in the Panasonic SD-YD250 manual for a medium loaf (1.5 lb.) – 1/8 cup of rye flour, 3 cups of bread flour, and caraway seeds, with nearly identical to Panasonic’s Basic White Bread.
• Zorjirushi has a recipe in the BB-PAC20 manual with 2/3 cup of rye flour and 4 cups of bread flour to make a large loaf.

Hydration is tricky because of the way the pentosans in rye flour release water. A dough with too much water may throw off some wet dough sheets that bake as crackers or as a thick crunchy crust.

The basic bake and whole wheat programs for bread machine baking are not adjustable. Modern machine programs mix and knead dough for about 20 minute, to work the dough and build gluten for yeasted bread made with wheat flour. The dough progam will be close to 20 minutes. The gluten-free program and the “cake” program (for unyeasted baking) also mix for about 20 minutes. The kneading action in all programs for the Zojirushi machine seems to be equally intense and fast.

Some bread machines can be programmed with custom cycles. I have tried to use the Zojirushi BB-PAC20, in a custom program with a short “knead” phase. A short mix does not lead to success. The Zojirushi custom (“home-made”) programs cannot be set to knead for less than 5 minutes. This will mix a light rye that is well less than 30% rye flour by weight. The homemade programs allow adding to the rise time, which allows more fermentation and rise. It is difficult to bake a light rye loaf smaller than a bread machine “medium” loaf in a Zojirishi horizontal pan machine.

Table of Contents

• Multigrain
• Recipes
  • Adaptions – records, methods, tables
  • Notes

Multigrain

Multigrain means a blend of bread flour and whole wheat, or another flour. These recipes involve 15% -50 % whole wheat flour by weight.

The basic bake program works in most machines for these recipes. When bread flour is less than 50% of total flour, recipes may suggest a whole wheat program, or a machine’s multigrain program.

Recipes

Adaptions – records, methods, tables

I adapted recipes, mainly from the Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (“BLBMC”). I wrote the recipes as tables using the WordPress TablePress plugin. I made the tables available online by putting the tables into posts. This was not a good way to record information that was mainly of interest to me, and subject to many internet connections. I changed my use of tables. I kept recipe tables for my own use as worksheets in a few spreadsheets that I use when I load my bread machine. I use the worksheets to calculate adjustments of recipes. I focussed on salt measurement and yeast measurement, and reformulated recipes to reduce my consumption of sodium. I considered how much yeast is necessary to ferment a few cups of a multigrain flour blend, to get a loaf that rises and bakes into a palatable bread. I had to find the correct amount of instant yeast, by weight, for recipes for medium (1½ lb.) loaves in a Zojirushi machine with a horizontal pan that is capable of baking a large (2 lb.) loaf.

Notes

I started with the BLBMC numbers for the ratio of flour. Increasing the whole wheat flour in these recipes would require adjustments to hydration and fermentation. I use some vital wheat gluten, but often less than BLBMC suggests. These loaves get gluten from blending high protein bread flour with whole wheat flour. Some added vital wheat gluten helps to enhance elasticity but too much affects pan flow and rise.

Some regular baking, with some observations

• Buttermilk Whole Wheat. BLBMC p. 108. A sandwich loaf; 50% Whole Wheat with buttermilk and maple syrup;
• 33% Whole Wheat. BLBMC p. 105. The source recipe uses skim milk. I did the math and found an equivalent amount of dry milk powder and water;
• 3 Seed Bread 50% Whole Wheat, Brown Sugar, Seeds. BLBMC p. 116;
• Pembina Bread. Flavour and texture in a white bread. Half a cup of whole wheat, bulgur and seeds, based in BLBMC Dakota Bread (p. 119). Named for Pembina, North Dakota, the gateway to Fargo and Grand Forks; the site of KCND, the first American TV network affiliate transmitter that reached antennas in Winnipeg (later purchased by Canadian owners and moved north of the border to the southern edge of Winnipeg as CKND).
• Cornell Bread. A brown bread. 50% whole wheat. A touch less than 50% bread flour Slightly sweet, and rich. BLBMC recipe p. 161, based on Cornell bread. The BLBMC bread machine version has been emulated and published on the Web e.g. here.
  • The recipe for Cornell bread was first published in 1955 in The Cornell Bread Book by Clive McCay of Cornell University. This bread uses an egg, milk powder, and soy flour for protein, and wheat germ for fiber.  Dr. McCay is reported to have believed that this bread, with butter, was a sufficient healthy and nutrious diet. A nearly vegetarian scientific health food, 30 years before the vegetarian prescriptions of Diet for a Small Planet. Dr. McCay, a scientist in animal nutrition, experimented on mice to prove that bread made with bleached white flour was not as healthy as bread made with unbleached flour.  The 1980 edition of the Cornell Bread Book is still available.
  • The recipe is presented in recipes  and articles on prepper and counterculture sites.  The recipe  was developed during the Great Depression.  Food security was recognized as an issue in America more clearly then than now. Eleanor Roosevelt’s Kitchen, a 2010 article in the New Yorker, looked back at the campaigns by home economists at Cornell to  promote economical recipes for American kitchens in hard times.  Americans were persuaded that hard times ended by 1945, and food writers began to treat the austerity diet (e.g. recipes for Bulldog Gravy or Depression Cake in M.F.K. Fisher‘s How to Cook a Wolf) as as a memory.
  • A lesson about hydration. On my first attempt at the medium loaf. I missed a digit in entering the water in the calculator. I used 1.25 cups x 237 g. = 297 g. The correct amount was 1.125 cups x 237 g. = 267 g. The dough was sloppy. I shook some white flour in (not measured, 3 or 3 tbsp) with about 10 minute of mixing time left to get a dough that held up. Too late and too little. The loaf had an open crumb and cratered.
• Flax Seed Multigrain. The BLBMC (p. 118) calls this Flax Seed Whole Wheat and makes it a multigrain with 33% whole wheat flour.  Also see a formula on the web, also called Flax Seed Whole Wheat Bread.
  • I used the web version, with a shift to a little whole wheat flour.
  • The BLBMC said 1.125 (1 ⅛) cups water. This is slightly high for a dough with 2 cups of bread flour. The dough finds a couple of teaspoons of water in 3 tablespoons of honey. It is a tad low for 2 cups of WW and 1 cup of bread flour. It has a firm crust and a dense crumb that holds up for firm sandwich slices.

Table of Contents

• Lean or Rustic
• Industrial Baking
• Bread Machines

Lean or Rustic

A lean bread is flour, water, yeast and salt. Technically, a lean bread is made with flour, water, salt and yeast, without fat: butter, oil, or vegetable shortening. Fat mixed and kneaded shortens gluten strands, making the bread softer.

Salt interacts with amino acids in the flour as the protein bind to make up the gluten proteins. Salt affects the elasticity of dough. Less salt means a less elastic and tenacious dough. Salt also inhibits the yeast and the fermentation. The latter effect is addressed by the rule of thumb¹A rule of thumb that may have to be adjusted. of proportional reduction by weight.

French Bread made with white bread flour is lean – even when made with some recipes with 1 or 2 Tbsp. butter for a bit of butterfat. There are wet doughs (hydration over 70%) for some loaves e.g. baguettes; and drier doughs (under 60% hydration).

Some baking recipe books are aimed at readers who want to make a specific type of bread, or have sections of recipes for artisinal baking, rustic bread, hearth or country bread. Many “country”, “rustic” or “hearth” loaves are lean. Most “country”, “rustic” or “hearth” loaves are attempts to create a historical style with modern ingredients. Pure wheat white flour started to be milled when agricultural and technical innovations during the industrialization of Europe made it possible. One change – rye or other grain growing with wheat was not harvested or sorted out and not milled.

Sandwich bread is not lean. It is enriched with fat or milk, and sugar. Milk has fats and sugars, in solution. Sugar makes the dough more extensible, which helps the dough to flow and rise. Sugar or milk change the crust and crumb.

Industrial Baking

Industrial scale baking does not dedicate time to rise dough and shape individual loaves. Industrial baking was challenged to mass produce rustic breads. Storebought “rustic” bread is available, but usually inferior to an artisan baked loaf or a home baked loaf.

Bread Machines

Bread machine manufacturers’ writers and recipe writers have tried to overcome the challenges of making lean and rustic bread:

• shaped distinctively,
• baked on a deck (hot surface) rather than in pans, or
• scored to control the way the crust ruptures as the loaf continues to spring in the oven;
• using the bread machine in a dough program to make dough, or starters or sponges;
• enriched recipes for a basic baking program or a “French” or “European” program. Panasonic had sugar in its recipe for French Bread in the Panasonic manual. The BLBMC has sugar in the Peasant Bread recipe;
• recipes for custom programs

Scoring a loaf is not a bread machine practice. It is a manual operation at a specific time at the end of “bench rest” before baking. It is possible but less common with loavea baked in baking pans. In a bread machine bake programs some rupture of the crust may be expected unless the user has intervened.

Bread machine recipes have to be customized for machines. I adapt “standard” recipes, mainly from the Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (“BLBMC“) and from the bread machine chapter of Beth Hensperger’s Bread Bible. I worked out my approach to yeast and low sodium in baking in a Panasonic SD-YD250 for medium (1.5 lb.) loaves June, July and August, 2018.

I adjusted yeast for BLBMC recipes baked in a Panasonic SD-YD250 machine when I realized that BLBMC recipes did not work in that machine.  The BLBMC recipes worked in the Panasonic with the salt proportional change, and an additional the adaptation to yeast quantity for the Panasonic. When I started to bake in a Zojirushi BB-PAC20, I changed my method of writing recipes in tables or worksheets.

I use a Zojirushi custom program for lean white bread. The differences between basic bake, French/European, and the custom program. Times in minutes. Baking temperature is not tested or published by machine manufacturers, because bread machines have one fixed temperature (and options to let a use choose a darker crust in some programs).

Machine	Program	Initial Rest	Mix/ knead	Rise (total)	Rise 1	Rise 2	Rise 3	Bake
Panasonic SD-YD250	Basic	30	15	110				50
Zorjirushi BB-PAC20	Regular Basic	31	19	95	35	20	40	60
Panasonic SD-YD250	French	40	10	175				55
Zorjirushi BB-PAC20	Custom French/Euro	22	18	85	35	50		70

Lean breads that work in a bread machine:

• Zojirushi’s recipe for Crusty French Bread, baked with a custom program works as medium loaf in a large pan and as a small loaf.
• BLBMC Peasant Bread is mildly enriched country/rustic white bread.
• BLBMC Chuck Williams’s Country French has 33% whole wheat.  Beth Hensperger adapted a recipe by Chuck Williams (of Williams-Sonoma) for the La Cloche device. It is similar to a hearth bread she calls Pain de Campagne in her Bread Bible (2000), which is made with a starter and sponge made with whole wheat flour. It is in the style of Pain de campagne, but with whole wheat (not rye) flour.  The whole wheat version loaf has a firm crust and a reasonably open crumb. It flows enough to work as a medium loaf in a large pan. (but getting the yeast right took some experiments.)

One main difference between using the basic bake program and a special French/Euro/lean program is yeast. My experience with low salt (3.6 g., instead of 8.6 g. salt) medium lean loaves in a Zojirushi is that these loaves work in Regular basic with 2.1-2.3 g. instant yeast, and in the Home-made (custom) Euro program works with 3.1 g. instant yeast.

Table of Contents

• Standard Recipes
• Zojirushi Regular Basic recipes
• Yeast
• Sandwich Bread

Standard Recipes

I am sceptical of the idea that a recipe for bread works in all bread machines. I think bread machine recipes have to be customized for machines. I adapt recipes, mainly from the Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (“BLBMC”).

I worked out my approach to yeast and low sodium in baking in a Panasonic SD-YD250 for medium (1.5 lb.) loaves June, July and August, 2018. BLBMC recipes did not work in that machine. I adjusted yeast for BLBMC recipes baked in Panasonic SD-YD250 machine. The BLBMC recipes for white bread loaves worked in the Panasonic with the adaptation.

When I started to bake in a Zojirushi BB-PAC20, I changed my method of writing recipes, and changed my recipes for that machine.

Zojirushi Regular Basic recipes

The Zojirushi manual provides recipes for sandwich breads, to be made using the Regular Basic baking course (program), including a loaf called Basic White Bread. The Regular Basic course and the Regular White course are similiar, varying in Mix/Knead phase by a few minutes and varying somewhat in the length of 3 “Rise” phases. I have not tried to identify other differences in Mix/Knead phases of these courses.

I used the Basic White Bread recipe to learn how the Zojirushi machine performed with the ingredients in that recipe for a sandwich bread.

I use the Regular Basic course for several sandwich loaves made with:

• 100% bread flour, enriched with dry milk (milk powder), sugar and other ingredients such as instant mashed potatoes;
• bread flour and up to 50% whole wheat flour;
• bread flour and small amounts of specialty ¹I mix and bake loaves with rye flour differently flour (e.g. buckwheat) and/or seeds.

Zojirushi’s approach to measuring flour by volume, stated in the manual, is to scoop flour and fill a measuring cup. This means a less dense or lighter cup than a meauring cup dragged through the flour. I use the amount of flour in the Zojirushi recipe by weight. Zojirushi’s recipes refer to Fleischmann’s active dry yeast and rapid-rise yeast. I prefer instant yeast – which means adjustment.

Yeast

Active dry yeast is less dense than instant yeast. I use instant yeast. I weight it and use 6/7 of the weight of the amount of active dry yeast the recipe requires. This seems to work with loaves made with bread flour and multigrain loaves.

I have touched on yeast in bread machine recipes, standard recipes, and salt in posts published since 2018. I will write more about then later.

Sandwich Bread

Sandwich bread is made with bread flour – in some instances all-purpose flour. It is not lean bread, and will have some fat, usually butter or shortening or vegetable oil. It may be made with milk or milk powder, sugar and other ingredients. Milk with the sugar lactose, and other sugars relax gluten and produce a less chewy loaf. Sugars, unless present in liquids like milk, honey, molasses or maple syrup, are hygroscopic and affect hydration.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
  • Endless Post
  • Comment
• Hensperger baking books
  • Author
  • Bread Bible -1999
  • BLBMC Editions
• BLBMC – 2000
  • Size
  • Standard Recipes?
  • Organization & Scope
  • Measuring Ingredients
  • Bread Baking basics
  • Dry Yeast
  • Vital Wheat Gluten
  • Advanced Baking
• The New Editions
  • BLBMC 2024
  • Beginners 2023
• What can Go Wrong

Introduction

Endless Post

This post about the Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (“BLBMC“)was published in 2020 and has been revised a few times. I haven’t marked revisions.

I made several revisions in 2025 after learning that:

• the publisher started selling an “affordable abridged edition”,
• the published started selling a “newly revised and expanded” edition , and
• some sources reported that the author Beth Hensperger had died in 2021.

Comment

I have kept my copy of the 2000 edition, and refer to it. I have given up using it as a cookbook – it is not for my bread machine or many other modern bread machines, and not a low sodium cookbook. I rely on recipes that I charted in a spreadsheet.

Hensperger baking books

Author

Beth Hensperger’s biography on the Amazon Store says:

Beth Hensperger, a New Jersey-born who now considers herself a California native, has been educating, writing, and demo-lecturing about the art of baking bread and cooking for thirty years. …

Hensperger’s writing career began when she was chosen as the guest cooking instructor for the March 1985 issue of Bon Appétit. Now she is the author of over twenty cookbooks, including the best-selling Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Cookbook series, which includes Not Your Mother’s Recipes for Entertaining, Not Your Mother’s Family Favorites, Not Your Mother’s Weeknight Suppers, and NYMSC Recipes for Two along with the blockbuster first volume, Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Cookbook. Also from The Harvard Common Press are The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook, The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook, and The Best Quick Breads. She is also the author of The Bread Bible, winner of the 2000 James Beard Book Award in Baking, and nominated twice for an IACP Cookbook Award.

Hensperger wrote a food column, “Baking with the Seasons,” for the San Jose Mercury News (which was nominated for a James Beard Award in newspaper journalism) for over 12 years until the newspaper downsized.

….

https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B000APB838/about

The Amazon biography is vague on dates.

Beth Hensperger mentioned her experience baking in a restaurant kitchen, and her experience holding workshops, teaching and writing in the introductory chapter “The Art and Science of Good Baking” in her book The Bread Bible (1999). She had a web site with many recipes, as one time. She may have died before March 25, 2021. There is a note by “Darcie” in the blog section of the otherwise paywalled Eat Your Books web site:

We learned through cookbook author Rick Rodgers that acclaimed San Francisco Bay Area-based food writer, cooking instructor, and bread baking maven Beth Hensperger has died after years of declining health. An editor who worked with Hensperger confirmed her passing although there has not yet been an official announcement.

https://www.eatyourbooks.com/blog/2021/03/25/baking-maven-beth-hensperger-has-died

The web site was gone by 2021, and had been high-jacked by web squatters. Information about her life and career are drowned in returns in searches by results for pages published for online booksellers selling copies of her books.

Beth Hensperger wrote, according to online bookseller information, several books about cooking and baking including:

• The Bread Bible: Beth Hensperger’s 300 Favourite Recipes, (1999) Chronicle Books, San Francisco;
• The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (2000), (“BLBMC“) The Harvard Common Press, Boston.

Both those baking books went out of sight.

Bread Bible -1999

The Bread Bible earned the James Beard Foundation award in 2000 in the Baking & Dessert category. It was criticized in an online review at the Fresh Loaf site: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/bookreviews/henspergerbible. It had recipes

• for home bakers who baked in ovens;
• that mainly used ingredients available to retail customers in stores in large American urban centers.

It was published by Chronicle Books, an independent publisher in San Francisco in 1999. It was republished as an e-book – apparently in 2013 when it appeared in Amazon Kindle format. It is not offered for sale online by Chronicle or by other online stores except as an e-book 0r a used book.

She referred to baking as an Art and a Science. She presented it as an art practiced by cooks, and part of the common sense and common knowledge of American cooks. Her writing in this book reflected a perception from her experience as a journalist in California in the late 20th century, that home bakers wanted information on using whole wheat flour, ancient grain, artisan technique and fancy bread, but liked information presented in the form of recipes, using measurement by volume (e.g. cups, tablespoons, teaspoons and fractions of those standards) being personally shared. She cited books that had influenced: the Tassajara Bread Book (1970), A World of Breads (1966), and the novel Reckless Appetites (1993). The book rode the currents of liberation from industrially processed bread.

At that time, home bakers mainly used active dry yeast; some had access to yeast cakes (wet raw yeast). Instant yeasts were available but not widely used. The Bread Bible discussed mixing dough in electric mixers and food processors. It had a chapter on bread machines.

She did not discuss commercial baking, the methods used by commercial bakeries and the methods of professional bakers – e.g. framing recipes for scaling according to Bakers’ percentage – or the food science of baking as understood by other writers.

Ms. Hensperger acknowledged in the Bread Bible that manufacturers had not translated the knowledge and experience of bakers into recipes that could be run by selecting a process in a consumer appliance. Teaching about baking in a book is hard. A book can explain what ingredients should be put in a machine before the buttons are pushed, which buttons to push, and what a loaf may weigh and look like.

BLBMC Editions

The BLBMC was published in 2000 by Harvard Common Press, an imprint of the Quarto Group. The BLBMC preceded titles by Hensperger and other writers in a “Not your mother’s” series published by Quarto imprints. The marketing pitch: using new appliances was exciting, life-affirming and innovative.

In 2023 and 2034 Quarto published two books based on the BLBMC. Both were placed with Walmart and Target stores, and on Amazon, where a book complements the sale of bread machines. Both were sold to libraries and educational web sites and services. The new (posthunous?) books:

• 2023 – Bread machine baking for beginners : effortless perfect bread (“Beginners“), an “affordable abridged edition” of the BLBMC; and
• 2024 – a “newly revised and expanded” edition of the BLBMC.

BLBMC – 2000

Size

The original had an Introduction titled”America’s New Bread Box”, and 615 numbered pages of text including 3 appendices. It had a general index and a separate recipe index.

Standard Recipes?

The BLBMC tried to be “Bread machines – the missing manual” – at the end of the 1990s. It successfully explained basic or core bread flour and whole wheat flour recipes, and how these form the basis of milk bread, sandwich bread, sweet bread, seed bread and raisin or fruit bread.

A subtitle on the cover claimed that the book held “a master baker’s 300-plus favorite recipes for perfect-every-time bread–from every kind of machine“. The BLBMC treated bread machines as generic in the chapter called “Orientation” which has sections called “Batterie de Cuisine: Knowing Your Bread Machine” and “Baking Bread”. The sections on bread machine operation are worthwhile. The BLBMC also has sections, sidebars, and detail sections on bread making and bread machine topics throughout the book,

The Orientation section gave a warning to “Take Stock of Your Machine”. But it presented recipes that were said to work in generic machines. This undersells differences in bread machines. Whether a BLBMC recipe can be followed depends on the machine, measurement and ingredients.

The BLBMC did not anticipate technological and market changes in bread machines. Machines diverged as the market evolved. Machines knead for an optimized time; some machines use the heating element to heat the pan to a proofing box temperature during the rise. Engineers optimized recipes for their companies’ machines – a walled garden approach to recipes. Manufacturers usually provide a manual with recipes to guide the consumer.

The BLBMC also did not anticipate technological and market changes growing and preserving dry yeast, and the evolution of the manufacturing of instant dry yeast.

For the most part, BLBMC recipes worked in my old Black & Decker. They did not work when I started to use a Panasonic SD-YD250, and in a Zojirushi BB-PAC20. I solved the issue for Panasonic SD-YD250 by using 50% less yeast by weight, and for the Zojirushi BB-PAC20.

Organization & Scope

BLBMC recipes have ingredient lists for “medium” 1.5 lb. and “large” 2 lb. loaves. A medium loaf usually uses 3 cups of flour; large, 4 cups. The BLBMC recipes are consistent with conventional oven recipes. BLBMC recipes work if the user can adapt – usually the amount of yeast – for the machine.

BLBMC covers the varieties of white bread, and the method of changing texture and flavour. It has recipes for whole wheat, and ancient grains. It did not anticipate the demand for gluten-free bread recipes and methods, with only 8 pages on that topic.

The table of contents and the index – I refer to the original 2000 edition for these page references – don’t locate all of them:

• p. 15 ingredient measurement;
• p. 18 converting volume to weight (flour and sugar);
• p. 12 flour,
  • pp. 46-47, white flour milled from wheat,
  • pp. 106-107, whole wheat flour,
  • p. 125, proteins in flour,
  • pp. 62-63, using non-wheat flour with wheat flour,
• pp. 133-135, using rye flour with wheat flour. This was possible in some machines but these recipes do not work in many modern machines;
  • p. 140, diy milling of whole grain flour,
  • pp. 150-152, non-wheat flour,
  • pp. 182-183, baking with whole grains, and preparing whole grain;
  • p. 193, organic flour;
• pp. 13-14 yeast;
• p. 15, p. 290. Salt:
  • is not just a seasoning or flavour agent;
  • should not be exposed to the water and the yeast before the machine mixes the ingredients;
  • can be reduced if yeast is reduced by the same proportion ¹BLBMC doesn’t explain that this is a starting point, to be adjusted;
• p. 13, p. 59 vital wheat gluten;
• p. 168 dough enhancers;
• pp. 69-72 6 “sampler” recipes for one pound loaves;
• p. 76 eggs;
• pp. 170-177, gluten free recipes and notes;
• pp. 197-198 using the machine to mix and knead dough for baking in an oven, and using artisanal baking methods, starters and pre-ferments, shaping loaves, etc.;
• p. 233 olive oil;
• p. 354 the shapes of bread machine pans.

Measuring Ingredients

While Ms. Hensperger was clear about the importance of measurement of ingredients for bread machines, she used home cooking conventions in her recipes including measuring out ingredients by volume. The recipes in the BLBMC measure yeast and salt to the quarter teaspoon, and flour and water to the nearest 1/4 cup; water to the nearest 1/8 cup.

Ms. Hensperger covers conversion from volume to weight for flour but not for yeast, salt and other ingredients. Confusion over volume measurement is endemic to baking. She addresses a problem of stating the flour for a loaf in cups. Flour is compressed or packed by drag-scooping. Ms. Hensperger says, correctly that a cup of bread or whole wheat flour, using drag-scooped cups rather than scoop and trickle cups is 5 US oz. by weight.

Bread Baking basics

The BLBMC says bread flour should be the white flour in bread recipes. White flour is prepared by finely grinding the endosperm (inner portion) of the kernel after the bran (outer coat) and the germ (seed embryo) have been milled out. Millers and bakers refer to extraction – white flour uses 50-60% of the kernel.

Ms. Hensperger describes bread flour as having 12.7 % protein. White bread flour in the USA has 11.5-13.5 % gluten-producing protein. All purpose white flour in the USA has 9.5-11.5 %.  Canadian all purpose flour for retail use is milled from a blend of hard spring wheats – Canadian Millers’ technical standards (Canadian millers produce Bakers patent and bakers clear for commercial bakeries and food manufacturing). Canadian retail all purpose flour has the same protein content as USA bread flour. It is fine for bread.

Whole wheat flour weighs as much as bread flour, per unit of volume, but is milled from entire kernel -100% extraction. It has has more protein overall but less of the insoluble proteins that bond to form gluten when water is mixed into the flour.

Dry Yeast

Ms. Hensperger described the varieties of dry yeast as: 1. active dry yeast; 2. instant (or fast-acting) dried yeast; 3. quick-rise (rapid-rise) yeast; 4. bread machine yeast.  3 and 4 are essentially instant yeast; instant yeast, under any of its names, is the choice for bread machines.  Ms Hensperger said instant yeast – particularly SAF instant yeast – is more potent. She suggests two alternatives for each recipe:

1. SAF instant dried yeast (SAF Red),
2. 25% – 33% more bread machine yeast than SAF instant yeast.  For instance, for Dakota Bread, BLBMC says 2 tsp SAF or 2.5 tsp bread machine.

The book overstates the amount of yeast needed for a loaf of bread. SAF Red is good but other instant yeast works in a BLBMC recipe in the same amount as the BLBMC suggests for SAF instant yeast. The alternative for “bread machine” yeast is usually just too high. Ms. Hensperger moved away from suggesting the use of higher amounts of yeasts other than SAF instant yeast. In a version of the recipe for Dakota Bread in 2015 on her blog she said 2 tsp “bread machine yeast”. Her blog ceased to be maintained and her domain name was later seized by cybersquatters.

The range of views about the amount of yeast:

1. For a 1.5 lb. loaf, Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook calls for 2 tsp instant yeast or more and 1-1.5 tsp. salt for 3 cups of flour. This  is in the range of recipes in other books at the time, and of many recipes published on the web. It is .67 tsp instant yeast, or 1.9 g. yeast per cup (about 140 g.) of wheat flour; the B% is 1.4%;
2. Manufacturers of instant, rapid/quick rise and bread machine yeasts recommend .5 tsp yeast for each cup of flour for bread machines: Red Star Quick-Rise; Bakipan Fast Action and Bread Machine; SAF Gourmet Perfect Rise and  Bread Machine. Fleishmann’s  recipes on its web pages imply the same amounts of its instant Quick-Rise (Rapid-Rise) or its Bread Machine product, or more. This is 1.4 g. yeast per about 140 g. of wheat flour; the B% is 1%;
3. Panasonic suggests .33 tsp of dry yeast per cup of flour – which works in Panasonic machines;
4. Zojirushi suggests .5 tsp. of active dry yeast per cup of flour in its recipes

Salt can be measured by volume with measuring spoons, but should be used carefully with level measurements. It is better to go by weight. The conversion rate is 1 teaspoon of table salt to 5.7 grams – the teaspoon that the recipe writer will have assumed.  Table salt is not all the same – some is pretty finely ground and more dense.

Several online converters report: 1 cup, (48 tsp (US)) instant yeast = 136 grams; 1 tsp = 3.1 g. Some converters report a teaspoon of instant yeast is a .11 oz. = 3.12 grams, or 3.15 g. My average for 1 tsp of SAF Red was 2.8 g. I scooped a few dozen samples, weighed them on a scale, and took the mean weight of my samples. Too close to worry about .1 of a gram. It won’t matter.

I checked conversions for my ingredients for the post Flour, B%, Water, Milk, Salt – Bread & Bread machines.

Vital Wheat Gluten

Vital Wheat Gluten, also called gluten flour. is a powder produced by industrial milling, used as a dough enhancer – an additive in commercial baking.

In the bread machine chapter of the Bread Bible, Ms. Hensperger suggested adding 1 teaspoon per cup of white flour and 1 ½ teaspoons per cup of whole grain flour, She suggested added gluten in almost bread machine recipe in BLBMC. She follows the same rules, with some adjustments for even more gluten for some 100% whole grain loaves. Others would not use added gluten with bread flour but add as much as 1 tbsp per cup with whole wheat flour.

Added gluten makes the dough more elastic – it promotes a vigorous rise if the dough is fermenting vigorously. Elasticitys affect the way the dough flows. It depends on how the dough is kneaded. Kneading organizes gluten into a web of protein that traps carbon dioxide.

Bread machines have changed since BLBMC was published. Most machines knead more thoroughly. Many machines warm the dough and enhance fermentation during the rise phase of the baking machine programs. These features change the requirements for yeast and gluten. The effect of using added gluten will be different depending on the machine and recipe. Adding gluten doesn’t improve yeast leavened breads made with high protein bread flour.

Advanced Baking

The sections of the BLBMC on using a bread machine to mix and knead dough for baking in an oven, and artisanal baking methods are informative. However manufacturers have abandoned – or never have supported the features that facilitate this.

The New Editions

BLBMC 2024

It has a new cover. The new back cover claims the BLBMC was the biggest and best bread-machine cookbook of all time.

The 2024 edition has 293 pages of text including the Introduction titled”America’s New Bread Box”, the text, and the first 2 of the appendices. The 3rd appendix “Resources” and the recipe index are gone. The recipes in the original are repeated. There are 5 new recipes in the section on gluten-free and low gluten loaves. I did not detect any new recipes or any deleted or changed recipes. I am not able to confirm that the 2024 edition is revised or expanded.

The page count has been halved by playing with typeface/font.

Beginners 2023

It has 140 pages of text, and an index. All of the recipes are from the original.

This chapter structure follows the original. There are less recipes. There are no gluten-free recipes in Beginners.

It has the text of the Orientation section of the original, including “What Can Go Wrong, and How to Fix It”. It has chapters like the chapters of the original called:

1. Daily Breads
2. Earth’s Bounty
3. Traditional Loaves
4. All Kinds of Flavours
5. Sweet Loaves
6. Express Breads

What can Go Wrong

Beth Hensperger introduced the topic of “What Can Go Wrong, and How to Fix It” at the end of the Orientation chaptet in all three versions: at pp. 38-39 of the 2000 original, pp. 28-0f the 2024 edition and pp. 42-22 of Beginners. It is a discussion of:

• Shaggy unmanageable dough ball;
• Wet, slick dough;
• Pale loaf;
• Loaf is too dense;
• Sunken top (crater bread);
• Collapsed top and sides;
• Gnarled loaves or machine sound strained during kneading;
• Squat, domed loaves;
• Lopsided loaf; Loaf ballons up over the rim of the pan like a mushroom…
• Bread is not cooked throughout;
• Added ingredients are clumped; and
• After baking, the loaf has a long crease down the side.

Some problems are not readily fit into those categories, and the solutions are can be contradictory. There are other causes with another solution: measurement mistakes, errors in following or understanding the book or a recipe, forgotten steps or pressing the the wrong button on the control panel. Some occur when a user tries to bake a small loaf in a medium or large pan machine. That situation commonly leads to a lopsided loaf, which looks odd but is palatable and managed easily.

Some problems occur when a user uses a flour that does not react well to the machine’s kneading program(s) – such as rye flour.

Bread baking can be automated. Some problems arise from trusting baking some breads was automated by any particular manufacturer or recipe.

Table of Contents

• Updated
• Zojirushi Virtuoso
• Basics
  • Dimensions
  • Mixing Pan
  • Drive Shafts
  • Kneading Blades
• Courses (Programs for Baking)
  • Phases
  • Regular and Quick
  • Dough, Starter, Other
  • Home Made
  • Other
    • Not included, but …
    • French/European/Lean Bread
    • Rye bread
    • MultiGrain
    • Raisins, Fruits, Seeds
    • No Salt
• Value
  • Price
  • Virtues
  • Limitations
• Loaf Size, Yeast & Salt
  • Medium Loaves
  • Yeast
  • Low and no sodium?

Updated

I wrote and published this post in 2020 within a few months after I started using a Zojirushi Virtuoso bread machine. I made changes, reorganized and republished the updated post in 2025.

Zojirushi Virtuoso

The firm has a brief Wikipedia entry, which reports:

Zōjirushi Mahōbin Kabushiki-gaisha) is a Japanese multinational manufacturer and marketer of vacuum flasks, beverage dispensers, thermos-style lunch jars, and consumer electronics including rice cookers, electric water boilers, hot plates, bread machines, electric kettles, and hot water dispensers.

Wikipedia entry, as of July 2025

It has a global (international) web page that displays in the English language. It has subsidiary or related companies in the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Thailand and the USA. The global page does not mention bread machines. Zojirushi has Australian, Middle Eastern and European distributors.

The USA company publishes the domain and web page Zojirushi.com, and a USA web store. The USA company is the only firm in North America in the pertinent section of the global web page. The USA web pages and store discuss Zojirushi bread machines. The relative authority of the regions and regional companies is not stated.

Zojirushi web pages do not say where Zojirushi products are manufactured. A third party blogger site says, as to bread machines:

The company has several production sites, including its main factory in Osaka, Japan, where it produces a significant portion of its bread makers. Zojirushi also has partnerships with contract manufacturers in countries such as China and Thailand, where some of its products are assembled and tested.

TableAndSpoon, viewed July 21, 2025

Another third party site says:

Zojirushi is a Japanese company that produces a wide range of kitchen appliances, including bread machines. Zojirushi bread machines are designed and engineered in Japan, and the company’s manufacturing facilities are located in Japan, China, and Thailand.

The exact location of production may vary depending on the specific model and the year it was manufactured. …

Jody’s Bakery, viewed July 21, 2025

Zojirushi started production of BB-PAC20 Virtuoso bread machine before 2016. The Bread Machine Diva (see links below; I will refer to her a few times) says in a post on her web page/blog in 2019 (which seems to have undated changes and updates) that she has replaced the kneading blades a few times, which explains he statement: “I bought it in 2013 and it’s still going strong. Yes, it’s more than 10 years old! I love love this bread machine! I make bread in it all the time and this machine has lasted longer than any bread machine I’ve ever owned.”

By 2019, Zojirushi was marketing the BB-PDC20 Virtuoso Plus. It had already stopped producing the Virtuoso. It sold replacement pans and kneading blades for the Virtuoso for a few years. By 2025,it had discontinued those parts. In 2025, the USA web store and Amazon were offering to sell a BB-PDC20BA, (the Bread Machine Diva says the BA suffix is a code for the color scheme), apparently with replacement parts compatible with with the BB-PDC20 and BB-PDC20BA. The Virtuoso Plus has changed since the Bread Machine Diva wrote about it in 2021 – Zojirushi added a “Rapid” setting similar to the Quick Dough setting of the older BB-PAC20, and the Home Bakery Supreme.

Here are links to reviews online that described and illustrated the BB-PAC20:

• Breadmakers.com
• Kitchenstory.com
• the Bread Machine Diva site

The Bread Machine Diva site has material on Zojirushi’s BB-PAC20 Virtuoso, BB-PDC20 Virtuoso Plus, and BB-CEC20 Supreme, as well as recipes. As of 2025 the site addressed the Virtuoso Plus and Supreme, but continued to focus on Zojirushi bread machines. It still has material on the BB-PAC20 Virtuoso. The site had resources, as of 2025, that may assist users of many machines – e.g. a page of links to manufacturer service sites and manuals.

I found a refurbished Virtuoso BB-PAC20 in an online store in early 2020.

Basics

Dimensions

The outside dimensions (inches|cm) and weight of the Virtuoso BB-PAC20 (“V”), and BB-PDC-20 (“V+”):

Model	End to end	Front to back	Height	Weight lb.|kg
V	18|45.5	10.5|26.5	13|32.5	22.5|10.2
V+	18|45.5	10.5|26.5	12⅞|32.5	24|10.5

The body is metal. The outer surface of the lid is plastic. The lid has a metal inner shell that aligns to the top of pan. The lid is substantial, with a long hinge with stops that holds the lid just past vertical when raised.

Mixing Pan

The mixing/baking pan is large and horizontal. The inside measurements  of the Virtuoso BB-PAC20 pan are 22 cm (9 inches) long by 13 cm (5 inches) wide. It is as long as a large (2 lb.) baking pan for loaves baked in an oven; and slightly wider. The pan is 13 cm (5 inches) high, and has clearance under the lid and lid element – i.e. capacity to bake a large (2 lb.) loaf. The pan has drive shafts for two “kneading blades” dough hooks/paddles). Each shaft passes through a sealed assembly in bottom of the pan, and has a special “wing nut” that fits into an opening in the machines drive system.

The base of the pan has a metal rectangle that fits into a rectangle 6¼ inches (15.5 cm.) in the base of the pan. There are fittings at the long ends of the rectangles. The pan is pushed into the base to lock the pan in, and tilted slightly to unlock. Locking the pan puts the wing nuts on the drive shafts into the drive system. Seating the pan in the base requires light pressure.

The main 600 watt heating element is under the pan, laid out in rectangle inside the space where the pan rests while the machine operates. There is a second 40 watt element in the lid. It is not visible when the lid is raised. It is inside the lid around the viewing window .

Drive Shafts

The drive shafts are separate from the pan, mechanically attached to pan and part of the pan assembly, The shafts are steel and not treated with no-stick coating. The kneading blades fit on the drive shafts; each shafts fit into a socket at one of each kneading blade. Wing nuts mechanically fixed to the ends of the drive shafts below (outside) the pan, fit into openings attached to in the drive system. The blades are rotated in jumps when the 100 watt drive motor is running.

Here is a 2025 picture of the inside of my Virtuoso BB-PAC20 pan assembly showing the bottom of the pan, with drive shafts, without kneading blades:

The shafts project into the inside of the pan assembly though holes located in small depressions in the base. Each drive shaft, measured from the bottom of a depression, is about 250 mm high. Each drive shaft is mainly round, and 8 mm in diameter. There are flat sections at the top of each shaft. The bottom of the blade is held off the base of the pan by the way the blade and the shaft connect, which creates a gap. The gap is about the width of a gift card, about .75 to .80 mm over the main bottom area of the pan – larger at the base of the drive shaft. The width of a gift card is shown in this photo of the gift card in the jaws of a digital caliper device:

A kneading blade appears in the photo, in profile, laid flat on the table top.

The shafts are round except for an area at the top of the shaft which has a flat section. The top 2.05 mm of the shaft is flat. There is a 2nd flat area almost 3 mm high immediately next to the top of the shaft – i.e. a deeper area or notch in the shaft.

Another way to get a look at an image of a drive shaft in a pan assembly: go to the USA support pages at Zojirushi.com and find a manual for the Virtuoso Plus. You will have to download the manual as a pdf; look at the section “Attach the Kneading Blades to the Rotating Shafts in the Baking Pan” (p. 14 for the V+).

Kneading Blades

A kneading blade was shown in the last image above. The blades appear to be cast from aluminum, and have no-stick coating. The weights of my two blades as of July 2025:

• Worn out blade – 17.9 grams;
• Worn but working blade – 18. 1 grams.

Each blade has a cylindrical socket that fits around a drive shaft. The height of the socket is just a tad less than 25 mm. high. Each is 60 mm. long, measuring from end to end including the socket. The height of the blade portion is 30 mm. The inside of the socket is round for nearly 20 mm. from the bottom (this is hard to measure) and for the top 2.0 or 2.1 mm. The inside diameter of the socket, in the round section, is 8.5 mm.

The sockets have a small flat area near the top of the blade about 3 mm high, corresponding to the flat area in notch in the drive shaft. The flat surfaces are aligned with each other when the blade is in position on the shaft. This is how force is transmitted to the blade when the drive system is active (when the machine is mixing/kneading or “knocking down” during the a rise phase). The blade cannot engage the shaft unless the blade is oriented correctly. The bottom of the 3 mm. flat area of the socket hits the bottom of the flat area of the shaft, which stops the blade from dropping along the shaft and hitting t the bottom of the pan – it creates small gap. The top of the 3 mm area catches the top of the notch in the shaft unless the blade is aligned. This keep the blades from lifting, sliding or falling off the shafts except when in alignment.

When a blade in working condition is fitted to a drive shaft, the top of the socket will align a fraction of a millimeter below the top of the shaft; the bottom of the socket and the bottom of the blade are held off the bottom of the pan. When the flat area of the socket is worn out, the blade does not engage the drive shaft. This has consequences:

• The blade contacts the base of the pan – it rest on the bottom of the pan;
• The drive shaft will spin in the socket without moving the blade.

Before a blade is worn out, when a blade is worn enough it may contact the pan.

The manual recommends wet ingredients be loaded first. This machine uses the usual way of keeping yeast away from the water: the user puts yeast in last, after the flour. When the machine is loaded, both blades are in the water or wet ingredients. Both blades mix the dough. The Operating Instruction & Recipe Book (manual) included a number of recipes. The manual could be viewed at the manufacturer’s USA web site as a pdf before it was manual was removed. Most of the recipes are for large (2 lb.) loaves.

The outside of the shaft is a quarter millimeter from the inside of the socket. Water, including water with dissolved and suspended solids, can penetrate this space, and some dough normally gets in.

In my experience with BB-PAC20 the tips of the drive shafts may have a little crumb adhering when the baked loaf is dumped out of the pan. The coated blades may trap a little crumb, but that has been rare. A minute amount of dough gets into the sockets; some dough sticks onto the upper tips of the shaft or, rarely to one or both blades. The pan releases the loaf, but the blades say with the pan. The blades have a small amount of crumb or crust adhering (baked on). I waiting for the pan to cool and put water in the pan to a depth that covers the blades and shafts. After a short soak I can twist the blades and release them off the shafts (manually).

This photo shows the pan with blades. One blade is worn but still working and one is completely worn out. :

The worn out blade rotates freely on the shaft and rests on the bottom of the pan.

Mixing and kneading are a single phase. The dough ball will not fill the pan until the dough ferments (rises), or the loaf springs during the first few minutes after the baking phases begins. During kneading, the dough should form a single ball that moves around the bottom of the pan. A wet dough may form two balls. Generally, the dough flows together and forms a loaf when the dough has fermented and sprung.

In some circumstances one of the blades can be lifted out of attachment to the drive shaft When this happens, the dough ball may stay at one end of the pan. The dough may flow enough fill the pan and bake into a normally shapes loaf when there is enough dough in the pan. Some times, one end of the loaf may be bigger and rise higher, or the loaf may show other signs of the way it rose and and sprung in the pan.

The pan coating releases the loaf easily at the end of the bake cycle; the paddles stay on the shafts in the pan. It has a delay timer, as most bread machines do, that can be programmed to finish (and start) at a time up to 13 hours after loading and starting the machine. The timer is integrated with a clock, and can be set to time when the bread can be taken out of the machine.

The viewing window in the lid collects a little condensation during the rest period before the mix/knead phase and in the early minutes of that phase, but clears up. It lets me observe the knead and see the dough. Raising the lid turns off the motor, pausing the course until the lid is lowered into place.

Courses (Programs for Baking)

Phases

Zojirushi calls the programs that control the machine in kneading and baking a specific type of loaf”courses”. A course is made up of phases. The phases and the purposes 0f the phases of the main baking courses (Regular Basic, Quick Basic, Regular Wheat and Quick Wheat):

Name	Action and purpose
Rest	The ingredients are heated a little above the ambient temperature around the machine
Mix/Knead	1. Mix the ingredients, dissolve soluble solids (e.g. salt, sugar, mik powder) and beginning to hydrate the flour; 2. Hydrate the flour further and/or work the proteins in the flour into gluten
Rise(s)	Fermentation. The element(s) warms the space around the pan to 91-95 ℉ (33-35 ℃) The mixer is deployed for knockdowns at the beginning of Rise 2 and Rise 3. A program with 3 Rise phases has sequence of rise-knockdown-rise-knockdown-rise.
Bake	The element(s) heats the space around the pan to 248-302 ℉(120-150 ℃) to bake the loaf.

The amount of time devoted to each phase varies, but is fixed for each of the programmed courses. There is no setting to change any phase of any course for loaf size.

The mix/knead phases are longer than in many other machines but not as long as in some Panasonic models.

The BB-PAC20 Virtuoso turns the heating element on for short intervals during the rise phases to raise the temperature in the mixing/baking pan to enhance or speed up fermentation.

The heating element is on, heating the space around the pan:

• to 248-302 F (120-150 C) for baking the loaf in these courses:
  • Regular (& Quick) Basic,
  • Regular (& Quick) Whole Wheat,
  • Gluten-Free,
  • Cake
  • Home-made
  • Jam (heat). 
• at a low temperature to heat the ingredients in the initial “rest” phase, which occurs in most courses,
• at 91-95 F (33-35 C) during up to 3 Rise phases in these courses:
  • Regular (& Quick) Basic,
  • Regular (& Quick) Whole Wheat,
  • Regular (& Quick) Dough,
  • Gluten-Free,
  • Sourdough starter,
  • Home-made. 

The control panel has a control button to set a crust setting of light, medium or dark. This function is active only in Regular Basic, Quick Basic, gluten free and cake courses (programs).

Regular and Quick

The Virtuoso BB-PAC20 Zojirushi “Quick” courses were variations of the Regular Basic, Bake Whole Wheat and Dough course. The differences between the Regular and Quick course were in the amounts of yeast and timing.

Zojirushi explained in the BB-PAC20 manual that it has tested the its programs with Fleishmann Yeast products – active dry yeast for the Regular Basic, Bake (Whole) Wheat and Dough programs, and “Fast-Rise” dry yeast for the Quick versions. This was standard for Zojirushi’s bread machines before the Virtuoso Plus. After that model was released, Zojirushi’s recipes ceased to refer to active dry yeast and began to refer to instant yeast.

The brand of yeast is not important.

A user can use instant yeast for a “Regular” course, if the amount is converted. There are no functional differences between instant yeast and Fast or Quick rise yeast products; the yeast strains are equivalent and the amounts and types of coating are the same.

The times (in minutes) for these phases :

Course (Program)	Rest	Mix/Knead	Rise 1	Rise 2	Rise 3	Bake
Regular Basic	31	19	35	20	40	60
Quick Basic	18	22	20	35	0	50
R. Bake Wheat	31-41	22	27-37	30	20-30	60-70
Quick Wheat	15	27	13	30	0	60
R. Dough	23	20	45	22	0	x
Quick Dough	10	20	10	10	0	x

The Quick courses used more yeast with same amounts of flour, water, salt, and other ingredients. I compared manufacturer’s recipes for medium (1.5 lb.) loaves, from the manual, by converting Active dry yeast to Instant yeast.

Recipe	Salt	Reg. course Active dry yeast	Reg. course Instant yeast	Quick course Instant yeast
Basic White Bread	1½ tsp.	Basic 4.2 g. (1½ tsp.)	Basic 2.8 g.	4.5 g.
100% Whole Wheat	1 tsp.	Wheat 4.2 g. (1½ tsp.)	Wheat 2.8 g.	4.5 g.

Dough, Starter, Other

This machine uses mix/knead and rise phases in the regular and quick dough courses. In these courses, the course does not proceed to the bake phase; the user should turn the dough out immediately at the end of the course, and shape and bake the dough in an oven.

The Sourdough starter course has a short Mix phase and a single 120 minute Rise (not 3 Rises). The manual has recipes to make a starter from flour and water and (commercial baker’s) yeast which can then be used to bake bread laterThe machine, in this course, can mix any pre-ferment whether called a starter, sponge, poolish, biga. The fermentation time can be extended by leaving the pre-ferment in the pan longer. It is could be a useful feature for users who want to use a bread machine instead of using other methods of growing and feeding “mother” starters or making pre-ferments.

This machine has:

• cake course for cake mixes, soda bread, corn bread and non-yeasted mixes;
• gluten-free bake course for gluten-free breads, which has a 17 minute knead phase, and a 35 minute three step rise phase;
• a Jam course which heats and cooks the ingredients, then mixes them.

Home Made

It provides for saving 3 “Home made” courses (custom programs) in which a user may set the time for the initial rest, mix/knead, rise (3x), and bake phases in a range. Temperatures for the rise phases and bake phase cannot be set; these are preset.

Other

Not included, but …

The Virtuoso does not have

• a French or European bread course,
• a multigrain course,
• a raisin or fruit bread course or
• a No Salt course

but can manage these breads.

French/European/Lean Bread

The Virtuoso BB-PAC20 manual provides recipes for French bread styles, and a suggestion on programming one of the “homemade” courses to bake a lean bread – it is almost identical to the “European” bread course in the Virtuoso Plus. It follows the sequence of the Quick Bake course in the BB-PAC20 Virtuoso, but gives the dough more rising time:

Course (Program)	Rest	Mix/Knead	Rise 1	Rise 2	Rise 3	Bake
(Suggested) Home made	22	18	35	50	Off	70
Quick Basic	18	22	20	35	0	50

Rye bread

Zojirushi had a recipe in the manual for a bread with a little rye flour using the whole wheat program, in its manual.

MultiGrain

Most loaves which involve mixtures of whole wheat flour, bread flour and most of the no protein (i.e. no gluten formation) flours can be mixed and baked in regular bake and Bake (Whole) Wheat courses.

Raisins, Fruits, Seeds

A bake program, by default, sounds a beep to prompt the user to add raisins or other ingredients late in the kneading phase. The prompt can be turned off when the machine is set.

No Salt

The Virtuoso does not have a No Salt course (there is such a course in the Virtuoso Plus), but can bake the Zojirushi No salt sandwich loaf (no salt but made with vinegar) in the regular basic bake course.

Value

Price

The BB-PAC20 was more expensive than most other bread machines, even at a discount. The retail price in 2022 was a premium price. The model was discontinued and replaced by the Virtuoso Plus

The Virtuoso Plus BB-PDC20BA was offered for sale in the US, for $420 ($US) in July 2025 in the Zojirushi.com (USA) web store and on amazon.com. The BB-PDC20BA was offered for sale in Canada on amazon.ca, on sale, with “free” delivery for $626 ($Canada) at the same time. The currency exchange rate, shipping and tariffs were a factor in the pricing. Availability in Canada from was uncertain. Zojirushi and actors in the supply chain, and Amazon.com would not sell or ship to Canadian buyers

Virtues

The Virtuoso BB-PAC20 is quiet. It is stable, partly due to its weight, and partly because it is a balanced machine It doesn’t rattle or try to dance off the counter, unlike many machines by other manufacturers and other earlier Zojirushi bread machines.

It is good at sandwich loaves made with wheat flour, water and baker’s yeast. It lets such dough “rise” (ferment), and bake for about an hour in a baking chamber smaller but as hot as a conventional oven. The loaves develops an even crumb structure and a sweet brown crust.

The inside of baking pan and the exterior surfaces of the kneading blades have been treated with a no-stick coating. The drive shafts are not coated. Non-stick coating of baking pans is a common feature of bread machines made after 1980, A bread machine pan is both a mixing bowl and a baking pan. A metal baking pan can be oiled when dough is place in a pan to rise and bake. The bowl of an electric mixer must adhere to the dough to mix and knead, and then allow a loaf to rise and slide out after baking,

The Virtuoso provides heat while the dough is being “proofed” (i.e. rising or fermenting before the dough is baked), incorporating the function of a proofing box (a device used by some bakeries and a few home bakers) into the bread machine.

Limitations

While Zojirushi suggests, by offering multiple courses, that Virtuoso can mix, knead and bake any kind of loaf, with any ingredients a user may want, the BB-PAC20 does not handle kneading and baking a blend with more than a nominal amount of rye flour well.

I have not tried to use the gluten free programs and recipes.

The blog at the Zojirushi USA site said the non-stick coating:

… is made using PTFE, or polytetrafluoroethylene, a polymer that is applied in a two-step process with a primer and a topcoat. It is nonreactive, inert, ultra-smooth, hydrophobic, and resistant to abrasions, corrosion, and heat.

Zojirushi.com blog, February 4, 2019, “Design Explained“

PTFE is a PFAS chemical which can be a hazard for the workers who may be exposed, and for persons consuming products prepared in cookware with coating made with PTFE, using the word hazard in the sense explained by the Government of Canada’s Centre for Safety and Occupational Health, (“CCHOS”), as source of potential danger:

A hazard is any source of potential damage, harm or adverse health effects on something or someone.

Basically, a hazard is the potential for harm or an adverse effect (for example, to people as health effects, to organizations as property or equipment losses, or to the environment).

CCHOS, viewed July. 2025

The bearings and seals of the drive shafts built into the baking pan can wear out. This happened to me once with this machine, in 2022 while replacement pans available;

The bit of metal that is used to make the flat section of the socket of a kneading blades will wear out. If that part of the blade was not weak and loose, the whole machine might fail. The kneading blades are vulnerable to strategic failure, by design.

Zojirushi did not discuss this issue in the promotional material for any bread machine or in the manual for the BB-PAC20. There was a reference to a battery for the internal clock bu no discussion of service life or the need to periodically replace of any other component, or of the kneading blades. Some users realized this was necessary. The Bread Machine Diva said, referring to kneading blade as paddles, in a post in 2019:

… I use my bread machine two to three times every week.  In my experience, Zojirushi bread machines will last four to six years under those conditions.    Paddles and other parts are available on Amazon or from Zojirushi.

I do need to buy new paddles every few years.

Bread Machine Diva, “What Bread Machine Should You Buy” – why Zojirushi, July 14, 2019, last updated April 5, 2025, viewed July 30, 2025

She did not explain what led her to buying new kneading blades. Zojirushi made baking pans and kneading blades for the BB-PAC20 available for a few years after the model BB-PDC20 was introduced (2019) ; replacement parts for the BB-PAC20 disappeared from Canada by 2025. In 2025, a few retailers in the USA still offered to sell pans and ship them to Canada. Blades were gone in Canada and the USA by July 2025 except “compatible” blades without coating made by a third party manufacturer, offered in the Amazon market. The vender and Amazon offered prompt service without any practical assurance that the goods were fit for the purpose.

Loaf Size, Yeast & Salt

Medium Loaves

A recipe for a medium loaf can be mixed, kneaded, proofed and baked in the large loaf pan of a BB-PAC20 on the factory settings for the regular bake and whole wheat bake programs on the machine’s settings. . A few recipes in the manual are for medium (1.5 lb.) versions of large loaf recipes.

A medium (1.5 lb.) loaf is 75% of a large loaf recipe. The dough for a medium loaf generally will flow and fill the bottom of the pan as the dough rises. The height of  a medium loaf, baked, from the bottom of the pan to top of the loaf at the wall of the pan is about 8 cm at the side of the pan; to the top of the crowned (domed) top of the loaf, 10-11 cm.

I tested the 1.5 lb. (medium) recipes in the manual. I tested the recipes as written -without attempting to reduce salt or yeast. I tested medium recipes if given, or large recipes scaled to medium, for loaves made with Bread flour and/or Whole Wheat flour. I converted yeast in these recipes from Active dry yeast to Instant yeast. Weight in grams of main ingredients for medium loaves:

Name	Manual p.	Course	Bread flour	WW flour	Water	Salt	Instant Yeast
Basic White Bread	14-15	Regular Basic	416	0	240	8.4	2.8
100% WW	18	Regular Wheat	0	420	320	5.6	2.8
Italian Wheat	19	Regular Wheat	256	180	270	6.3	3.8
Crusty French	44	Home made i.e. custom	416	0	240	5.6	2.8

These medium recipes worked. The dough flowed enough to fill the pan to both ends and front to back. It rose, sprung and baked into loaves within the pan and well under the lid. I put these recipes into worksheets or tables for my future reference to help work out conversions for recipes from the Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook and other sources.

These recipes will work with less salt than the recipes in manuals say.

Yeast

Medium loaf recipes from the BLBMC recommend 1.75 tsp. (5.5 g.) or 2 tsp. (6.2 grams) +/- instant yeast for 3 cups of bread flour, or 1.5+ cups bread flour blended with 1.5 cups of whole wheat flour, and 1.5 tsp salt. For the BB-PAC20, I need 50-70% of the instant yeast in a BLBMC recipe. (This is a little more than the amount that I would use in a Panasonic.)

Low and no sodium?

This machine supports low sodium baking, as any bread machine does.

Table of Contents

• Bread Machine Recipes
  • Note
  • Wet and Dry
  • Weight
• Structure
  • Basic
  • Rows
  • Yeast

Bread Machine Recipes

Note

I began to chart bread machine recipes when I realized that each manufacturer designs its programs for its machines. “Standard” recipes (e.g. Bread Lovers Bread Machine Cookbook) fail in some devices. I experimented with putting recipe information in tables in the TablePress plugin and storing and publishing the table on this site, but have wound down those efforts. A spreadsheet worksheet is a more suitable tool, and allows for formulas to calculate some information. and more formatting practices. I keep some recipes in spreadsheets on a device I can read and alter at home, without going online.

Wet and Dry

Bread machines are either dry (flour) first or wet (water or milk) first, according to manufacturer’s recommendation.

• dry first – the yeast goes into the dry bottom of the pan and is covered by flour and dry ingredients; salt is the last dry ingredient. Fluids and water are on top, loaded last.
• wet first – water and wet ingredients first, then salt, milk powder, sugar and soluble things, flours; the yeast is last.

Either way, load the machine and let the machine mix the ingredients. Don’t stir or mix. Yeast should stay dry and should not come into contact with salt or salted water until the dough is mixed and kneaded. Loading a dry first machine (e.g. Panasonic) put yeast first, then flour, and go down the table. For a wet first machine (e.g. Zojirushi) I go up the table, and put yeast in last, on top of the flour.

Raisins and fruit are loaded as dry ingredients. They can be loaded in the dispenser if the machine has one, or during the mix phase of a program, at the signal (if the machine has one), or according to a timer, as a recipe will say.

Weight

Weight is important for some ingredients:

• Flour determines how large a loaf can be. A medium loaf can be baked in a machine with a medium pan, a large pan or even an extra large pan. A medium loaf will have 3 cups of wheat flour.
• Water has to be proportionate to flour to get a dough that kneads, flows, rises and bakes. It varies with flour; some ingredients can add water. Milk is mainly water, but not quite.
• Yeast is the principal variable that determine how high the loaf rises. Yeast is necessary to turn flour into dough that can be baked to make bread.
• Salt assists the development and structure of the compound protein called gluten. However, most recipes require more salt than necessary. If salt is reducted from what a recipe says, yeast must be reduced or the loaf will rise too much.

Structure

Basic

A worksheet or table is basically a list of ingredients and quantities that I refer to in loading a machine. It list ingredients according to the source, and alternatives and substitutions. It will listt he source recipe amounts, usually by volume. An ingredient without data in this column is not in the source recipe!

I use the top rows in worksheet or tableas the headings for columns. I note loaf size. It is almost always a medium bread machine loaf. I have experimented with scaling to bake smaller loaves but have found that is too complicated. A medium bread machine loaf recipe works in a horizontal pan machine with a large “2 pound” like a Zojirushi BB-PAC20. In some recipes a refer to a large loaf source and scale it down to medium

Other columns can convert a medium loaf recipe to lower salt medium loaves, Columns can be added to calculate chemical elements in bread, such as sodium.

A baker’s percentage column can arrange cells or entries to calculate the Flour weight (flour, sugar dry milk etc., but not salt yeast or herbs seeds, dry fruit, nuts), soluble water weight (water, and water in milk, butter, sweet syrup but not oils) and hydration.

Rows

Rows:

• One row can identify the loaf and the recipe source;
• A row identified loaf sizes for the ingredients in column. Large is a 2 lb. loaf. Medium is a 1.5 lb. loaf;
• A row a row identifies the salt level adaptation
• A row can notes the recommended program. Manufacturers’ program names vary. Every manufacturer has basic bake, whole wheat bake, dough (mix and knead but no bake) and cake (bake a batter without mixing and kneading dough) programs;
• A row can note what kind of measurements are used in that column – volume, weight or both;
• Most rows are ingredients and amounts. I refer to weight for flour, water, salt and yeast. For some other ingredients, measurement by volume is close enough.

Yeast

I record the active dry yeast in the source recipe, if the source calls for active dry yeast. If the amount is by volume, I put that in the table. If the source calls for instant by volume, I put that in the table.

I always convert to instant yeast by weight. I put instant yeast in several rows, as options and aids to calculation:

• A row for the highest amount of instant yeast for a medium (1.5 lb.) loaf for information. Using this value for a medium loaf in a 2 lb. pan in a Zojirushi BB-PAC20 is not optimal for that machine, and many other machines. This value is not suitable for the Panasonic SD-YD250 or for the Zojirushi BB-PAC20.
• There is a row for Zojirushi BB-PAC20.
• Rows for Instant Yeast, Low at 50% of the source or highest level. This figure work for the Panasonic SD-YD250, and some other machines. I refer to it as a benchmark to estimate yeast conversions.