Category: Food

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

• Virtuoso
• Dimensions, Manual
• Features
  • Programmed features
  • Regular and Quick
  • Dough, Starter, Other
  • Home Made
  • Other
    • Not included, but …
    • French/European/Lean Bread
    • Rye bread
    • MultiGrain
    • Raisins, Fruits, Seeds
    • No Salt
• Yeast & Salt
  • Medium Loaves
  • Yeast
  • Low and no sodium?

Virtuoso

Zojirushi started production of BB-PAC20 Virtuoso bread machine before 2016. The following reviews describe and illustrate this machine:

• Breadmakers.com
• Kitchenstory.com

Zojirushi, by 2019, was marketing the BB-PDC20 Virtuoso Plus.

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

[Update. I later found the Bread Machine Diva site, which has material on Zojirushi’s BB-PAC20 Virtuoso, BB-PDC20 Virtuoso Plus, and BB-CEC20 Supreme, as well as recipes. Some recipes are specifically for modern Zojirushi 2 lb. machines. It has resources that may assist users of many machines – e.g. a page of links to manufacturer service sites and manuals.]

Dimensions, Manual

The Virtuoso BB-BAC20 is stable, and quiet. It doesn’t rattle or try to dance off the counter. It has been built to high standards.

It has a horizontal pan with two paddles. The paddles should be pointed in the same direction. A crossbar on the end of the drive shaft fits into an opening in the drive system. The paddles are designed to rotate in equal jumps.

When the machine is loaded, both paddle are in the water or wet ingredients. Both paddles mix the dough. 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. This can be a problem – a small problem if the dough flows together and forms a loaf when the dough has fermented and sprung

In some circumstances the drive system will release one of the paddles. When this happens, the dough ball may stay at one end of the pan or split into two masses. They will eventually reunite if there is a full recipe 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 inside measurements  of the 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; the pan is 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. Most of the recipes in the manual are for large (2 lb.) loaves.

The base of the pan has a metal rectangle that fits into a rectangle in the base of the pan. There are blade clips at the long ends of the outer rectangle. The pan is pushed into the base to lock the pan in the clips,and tilted slightly to unlock. Locking the pan puts the bars on the drive shafts into the two connecting fittings of the drive system. Seating the pan in the base requires some pressure. I had to learn how to seat and check the pan. The lid is a rectangle 33 cm. x 22 cm. The outer shell is plastic. It has an inner shell that aligns to the top of pan. The lid is substantial, with a long hinge with stops that hold the lid just past vertical when raised. The viewing window in the lid collects a little condensation during the pre-knead rest and in the early minutes of kneading, but clears up. It lets me observe the knead and spot a problem with the dough. Raising the lid turns off the motor, pausing kneading until the lid is lowered into place. This facilitates adding a few grams of flour or water if needed. 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, which saves the user from the calculations involved with a simple timer.

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.

The manual includes a number of recipes. The manual, in English, can be viewed at the manufacturer’s USA web site.

Features

Programmed features

The programs are called “courses”, and are made up of steps or phases. The amount of time devoted to each phase varies, but is fixed for each of the programmed courses.

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

• 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 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. There is no way to disable or avoid this setting or to pause the machine to delay fermentation.

The phases of the baking (Regular Basic, Quick Basic, Regular Wheat and Quick Wheat) courses:

Name	Action
Initial Rest	The ingredients come to a common temperature
Mix/Knead	1. Mix the ingredients together, hydrates the flour; 2. Knead to work the proteins in the flour into gluten
Rise(s)	Fermentation. The element warms the space around the pan to 91-95 F (33-35 C) 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 heats the space around the pan to 248-302 F (120-150 C) to bake the loaf.

There is no setting to change any phase of any course (program) for loaf size.

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

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

Zojirushi, like other manufacturers, has Quick progams, variations of the Regular Basic, Bake Whole Wheat and Dough programs. Quick programs are shorter than the so-called regular programs.

One difference between Regular and Quick program are the times (in minutes) that the phases are run:

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
Bake Wheat	31-41	22	27-37	30	20-30	60-70
Quick Wheat	15	27	13	30	0	60
Dough	23	20	45	22	0	x
Quick Dough	10	20	10	10	0	x

The quick programs use more yeast with same amounts of flour, water, salt, and other ingredients. I compared manufacturer recipes for medium (1.5 lb.) loaves, from the manual. The differences between active dry yeast and instant yeast are minor. A user can use instant yeast, if the amount is converted. There are no functional differences between instant yeast and Fast or Quick rise yeast products.

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.

Zojirushi explains 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” for the Quick versions. The brand of yeast is not important. Comparing instant, “Fast-Rise”, Quick, or “Bread Machine” yeast, the yeast strains are equivalent and the amounts and types of coating are the same.

Dough, Starter, Other

This machine will mix and knead dough and rest the dough to rise in the regular and quick dough courses. In these courses, the user should turn the dough out immediately at the end course and shape and bake the loaf.

The Sourdough starter course has a short Mix phase and a single 120 minute Rise (not 3 Rises; i.e. no knockdowns). It will mix any preferment whether called a starter, sponge, poolish, biga. The fermentation time can be extended by leaving the preferment in the pan longer. It is a useful feature for users who want to use a bread machine to assist with more complex recipes.

It has:

• cake course for cake mixes, soda bread, corn bread and non-yeasted mixes;
• gluten-free bake course for yeasted 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 rye bread course,
• a multigrain course,
• a raisin or fruit bread couse or
• a No Salt course

but can manage these breads.

French/European/Lean Bread

The Virtuoso does not have a European course which is a feature of the Virtuoso Plus.

The Virtuoso manual provides recipes for French bread styles, and a useful suggestion on programming a “homemade” course 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

The Virtuoso can make a “light” rye bread with a mixture of wheat flour and rye flour. Zojirushi addressed this with recipes using the whole wheat program, in its manuals.

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 the No Salt course which is a feature of the Virtuoso Plus, but can manage to bake the Zojirushi No salt sandwich loaf (no salt but made with vinegar) in the regular basic bake course.

Yeast & Salt

Medium Loaves

The pan is short and narrow enough that a medium recipe can be mixed, kneaded, proofed and baked in the pan. This machine can bake a medium (1.5 lb.) loaf, which is 75% of a large loaf recipe, on the factory settings for the regular bake and whole wheat bake programs.

If the dough can relax, flow in the pan and rise. It will bake a medium loaf on the default (i.e. large loaf) settings. The height of  a medium loaf 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. Medium loaves may slope, but generally will flow and fill the bottom of the pan.

A few recipes in the manual are for medium (1.5 lb.) versions of large loaf recipes.

I tested the 1.5 lb. (medium) recipes in the manual. I tested the recipes as written – no attempts to reduce salt or yeast, and with adaptations. 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 doughs flowed to fill the pan, rose, sprung and baked. 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 can be adapted to 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 this machine, 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. But low sodium baking is not discussed in the machine manual.

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.