Smaller Bread Machine Loaves

Why?

The main reason for baking smaller loaves is to have fresh bread and avoid spoilage.

Bread is considered an intermediate-moisture food product that is prone to mould spoilage. Normally bread is eaten fresh or preserved using additives or modified atmosphere packaging.

Stanley P. Cauvain, Breadmaking, 2nd ed. 2012

Any food exposed to air picks up spores and will grow mould. Metal breadboxes with loose doors and lids are convenient but too loose too keep bread from drying out. I don’t want a new ceramic bread storage container, an accessory suggested on some sites. Plastic bags keep loaves from drying out but do not keep bread from going stale.

Home bakers, bread machine bakers and internet advice sites have suggestions on inhibiting mould:

• How to Keep Homemade Bread From Molding at Knead Bake Rise;
• An article published at thespruceeats.com makes some sensible suggestions, unfortunately tending toward reorganizing or making over the kitchen;
• There is the practice, said to popular among the Dutch, of freezing and thawing bread.

I have alternatives:

• Metal tins with lids. Old cookie tins are too small, I have a container for potato chips as sold in the 1950s and early 1960s. My mother used it to store flour, rolled oats and sugar. This might hold a loaf or two.
• I have a Tupperware 23 cup (5.5 liter) plastic box with a hinged sealed lid. I think it was designed and sold as a container for large (2 lb.) bread machine loaves. There are plastic food storage boxes on the market that will hold a loaf of bread. These are keep the a loaf from drying out, but tend to be humid. They have to be regularly washed to remove crumbs and prevent mould.

The Constraints

The ingredients, mixed and kneaded, form a ball. Dough has to be elastic to hold up as the dough ferments and rises. Elasticity is the reason that bread machine bake programs can’t produce the shapes and crust of country/artisan loaves. The dough for a loaf baked in the oven is shaped into a mass shorter and narrower than the pan. The dough ball is usually in the middle of the pan at the end of the knead. The dough flows as it rises; the dough ball slumps horizontally. The dough for medium and small loaves will reach the side walls, but not necessarily the ends by the end of the rise. The loaf will flow and rise or spring for the first 20 – 30 minutes of baking. A medium loaf should reach the ends, but may not push into the corners. Workable bread machine recipes should make the dough viscous and extensible enough to flow in the bottom of the pan and rise reasonably uniformly. The dough will gather at one end of the pan. When a dough ball at one end of the pan fails to flow enough, the loaf rises more at that end and bakes into a sloping loaf in a bake program in a bread machine. It leads to loaves that slope along the top in a medium loaf. This effect occurs in machines with rectangular and horizontal pans, and more pronounced with small loaves in horizontal pans.

The pan influences the loaf – some shapes are hard to handle, store and slice. A medium or large loaf baked in a horizontal pan resembles a loaf baked in a 2 pound oven pan. In another pan that loaf will be shorter, wider and higher. Bread machine loaves, comparing to the descriptions of baking pans for ovens:

Flour	Bread Machine	Bread Machine	Oven Pan	Oven Pan Volume US/Imperial	Oven Pan Volume Metric
2 cups	Small	1 pound
3 cups	Medium	1.5 pound	1 pound	8 x 4 x 2½ inches	20½ x 10 x 6½ cm 1333 cubic cm.
4 cups	Large	2 pound	2 pound	9 x 5 x 2 3/4 inches	23 x 13 x 7 cm 2093 cubic cm.
	XL	2.5 pound

There are 1 lb. bread machines, including Zojirushi models and Panasonic models – not necessarily available in USA or Canada.

1.5 lb. machines were common; 2 lbs. is a common size; some are 2.5 or 3 lb. Some large and extra large machines have control settings (progams) or recipes for medium loaves. A 2 lb. or 2.5 lb. machine will bake a 1.5 lb. loaf. The dough will only overflow the pan if overleavened. The machine will bake the dough in the normal bake programs. A medium loaf baked in machine with a large pan may slope. Some doughs do not flow to the length of the pan and bake with one cubic end and one messy end.

Large Pan; Smaller Loaves

A recipe can be adjusted. The important rule is that flour, water, yeast and salt have to be reduced in same proportion; other ingredients should be reduced proportionately too. A simple way is to scale by reference to total flour; by recipe size (volume). The ingredients for a 1.5 lb. loaf produce 75% of the dough in a 2 lb. recipe. A large 2 lb. recipe can be scaled to medium and baked in 2 lb. machine.

Scaling down to a 1 lb. loaf may work in 1.5 lb. machines but does not work well with large pan machines. A 1 lb. dough ball is too small to fill the base of a large or extra large pan. A true “small” loaf recipe (half of a 4 cup/2 lb./large loaf recipe or 2/3 of a 3 cup/1.5 lb. medium recipe) baked in large pan will be edible and palatable, but it will bake in odd shapes. In both my large machines (below) it was better to try for 80 or 85% of a medium recipe. For the horizonal pan in the Zojirushi, I find that 85% of medium produces a loaf that fills the pan from side to side.

Doughs that flow across the bottom of the pan and rise will bake into loaves as long and wide as medium loaves. Some doughs produce short loaves that do reach both ends of the pan. The doughs that flowed best were hydrated at over 65%, enriched with sugar and fat, and had gluten. Bread flour has enough gluten, but a lean loaf will be compact. Adding vital wheat gluten to whole wheat flour helps to give the loaf structure, but can make the dough too elastic. In a multigrain loaf, moderate amounts of gluten are effective.

My Machines

Panasonic SD-YD250:

• owned and used 2016-2020
• 2.5 lb. “extra” large pan
• tall vertical rectangle pan, single paddle dead centre, bottom of pan;
• 550 watt motor that runs for 50-60% of the time in a 25 minute +/- mixing phase on a medium loaf setting;
• 550 watt element, about 1 cm below the bottom of the pan. A small loaf develops hot spots around the base of the pan but is not burned;
• 266 square cm. pan: 19 cm (7.5 inches) by 14 cm (5.5 inches);
• 1 paddle, central:
  • 6 cm long, radially;
  • 2.6 cm high, rising to a fin 5 cm tall;
• The paddle is deep in the loaf, but a small loaf rises and springs to a height of 7.5 cm or more, and clears the paddle;
• Control settings (programs), and recipes for medium, large and extra-large
• No custom programs;
• No Pause button; Power interrupt by unplugging – 10 minutes to resume cycle.

Zojirushi BB-PAC20 Virtuoso:

• Owned and used 2020>
• 2 lb. large pan (similiar to other Zojirushi 2 lb. machines – Virtuoso Plus, Home Bakery Supreme)
• horizontal pan, dual paddles on the long axis,
• 100 watt motor;
• 286 square cm. pan: 22 cm (9 inches) by 13 cm (5 inches);
• 2 paddles 11 cm apart. Each is 5.5 cm off centre along the long axis, down the centre. Each paddle is:
  • 6 cm. long,
  • 1.2 cm high – 2.9 cm high at a fin;
• Two elements:
  • 600 watt main element, about 1 cm below the bottom of the pan; 
  • 40 watt lid heater;
• No control settings (programs) for medium or small loaves. The manuals have a few recipes for medium loaves to be baked using the programs for large loaves;
• No Pause button. Pause knead by raising lid.

The medium loaf baked in the Panasonic could not be stored in a 10″ x 14″ plastic storage bag. It was too fat. The longer Zojirushi loaf fits into such a bag without jamming and tearing the bag.

Conversion

Almost all home baking recipes list all ingredients by volume. Many bread machine recipes do too. Measurement of flour, water, yeast and salt by volume is imprecise. The most precise way to scale is by weight. I weigh flour and water in a bowl or measuring cup; I reset the scale to zero after putting the empty measuring vessel on the scale. A scale that goes to 1 gram is precise enough for flour and water. The volume measurements of salt and yeast for small loaves are fractions of a teaspoon. I use a scale that goes to 0.1 grams. Converting a recipe from volume to weight and scaling from volume is possible, with careful calculation.

For yeast, I refer to my own conversion chart, which compares the volume of active dry yeast and instant dry yeast and converts either to weight in grams:

Active tsp	Grams	Instant tsp
2.5	6	2.1
	5.6	2
2.25	5.4
2	4.8
1.75	4.2	1.5
1.5	3.6
1.25	3
	2.8	1
1	2.4	.86
	2.1	.75
	1.4	.5
.5	1.2
.25	.6

Recipes almost always refer to ordinary table salt, which is 5.7 grams per teaspoon. I refer to my own conversions or use a calculator. I have been writing recipes with 50% and 33% sodium:

Tsp. (fraction)	Tsp. (decimal)	Grams
1/8		.7
1/4	.25	1.4
3/8		2.1
1/2	.5	2.8
5/8		3.6
3/4	.75	4.3
7/8		5
1	1	5.7

Seeds and herbs should be adjusted in proportion to the flour. I don’t measured down to the gram. Oils, sugar and and sweet fluids should be adjusted too, without trying to weigh them. It is worth being aware of water in milk, eggs, honey, maple syrup, molasses, and other syrup of sugar and other ingredients dissolved or suspended in water. Conversion factors are not always easy to find; and sources may disgree or only apply to some varieties of an ingredient, or to a brand of a commodity. I have a list, also found in the post Measuring & Conversion.

Ingredient	Volume US Units	Metric | US Weight	Water content	Brand; notes
		*Food Facts label value, not checked
Wheat Flours
Bread Flour (USA) or All Purpose White Flour (Canada)	1 cup	139 g. | 5 oz.		drag-scooped, typical; Rogers Foods Unbleached [BC Brand]
Whole Wheat Flour	1 cup	139 g. (120 g.*)		drag-scooped, typical; Rogers Whole Grain WW /whole-wheat-flour-hard-red-spring-fine-grind/">Anita's Organic Mill
Atta Durum blend for flatbreads	1 cup	139 g. 120 g.*		drag-scooped Golden Temple
Spelt Flour	1 cup	120 g. | 4.2 oz.*		typical
Spelt Flour	1 cup	118 g.		True Grain Organic SG, sifted (BC brand)
Other flour & Meal
Rye flour		120 g. | 4.2 oz.		nominal/typical & Anita's Organic Mill
Dark Rye Flour	1 cup	124 g. (nominal 120 g.)		Rogers Dark Rye
Buckwheat Flour	1 cup	130 g.		Nunweiler's
Besan (Chickpea Flour)	1 cup	92 g.		Teja
Bulgur	1 cup	140 g.		typical
Cracked Wheat	1 cup	140 g.		typical
Cracked Wheat	1 cup	124 g.		Teja
Dry, Soluble
Vital Wheat Gluten	1 cup	120 g.		typical
Vital Wheat Gluten	1 tbsp.	7.5 g.
Sugar, white granulated	1 tbsp.	12 g,
Sugar, brown	1tbsp.	14 g.
Nonfat/Skim Milk Powder	1 cup	96 g.
Nonfat/Skim Milk Powder	1 tbsp.	6 g.
Buttermilk Powder	1 tsp.	3 g.
Instant Potato Flakes	1 tbsp.	4 g.		Idahoan
Salt & Yeast
(Table) Salt	1 tsp	5.7 g.		Regular; not fine grain
Instant Dry Yeast	1 tsp	2.8 g.
Active Dry Yeast	1 tsp	2.4 g.
Active Dry Yeast	1 "packet"	7 g. | .25 oz. (2.25 tsp.)		Older recipes 2.5 tsp.
Water
Water	1 cup	237 g.
Skim Milk	1 cup	245 g.	223 g.
1 % Milk	1 cup	244 g.	219 g.
2 % Milk	1 cup	244 g.	218 g.
Whole Milk	1 cup	244 g.	215 g.
Buttermilk	1 cup	245 g.	215 g.
Evaporated milk	1 cup	256 g.	203 g.
Butter	1 tbsp.	14 g.	2 g.
Egg, large	1	57 g.	36 g.	Canada standard average
Molasses	1 tbsp.	21 g.	4.5 g.
Honey	1 tbsp.	20 g.	4 g.
Maple Syrup	1 tbsp.	20 g.	6.5 g.