Tag: Bread machines

Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook

Table of Contents

Introduction

Updated

This post about the Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (2000) (“BLBMC“)was published in 2020 and revised a few times; I haven’t marked the revisions. I made more revisions in 2025 after learning that the author Beth Hensperger had died in 2021, and that subsequently the publisher started selling two new editions of the BLBMC.

Comment

I have kept my copy of the 2000 edition. I have given up using it as a cookbook – it is not for my bread machine or many other modern bread machines.

Ms. Hensperger acknowledged in her earlier book 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.

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 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”. It explained the process of mixing dough and baking bread. It expained flour. It explained how yeasted wheat bread is the basis of many variations including 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“. This is marketing hype. The chapter called “Orientation” is useful, 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.

But the BLBMC incorrectly treated bread machines as interchangeable as if they are generic, all worked the same way and all would bake bread with the same recipes.

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, in growing and preserving dry yeast, and the evolution of the manufacturing of instant dry yeast.

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.

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 in a similar way 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.

Bread Machine Recipe Tables

Table of Contents

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.

Bread Machine Artisan Bread?

Reasons a bread machine cannot be used, in the baking programs, to bake artisan bread:

  1. Gluten. The autolyze (a rest after mixing before kneading) and other rests during kneading allows gluten to form in a less structured way that produces the more open crumb of French bread and artisan loaves.
  2. Fermentation. Artisan loaves involve pre-ferments, delayed or cool fermentation, or bacterial fermentation for flavour. A pre-ferment or started (sponge, biga, poolish, pre-ferment, pate fermentee, sourdough, mother, chef, levain) introduces yeast or bacteria and enhances flavour.This also contributes to the irregular crumb.
  3. Shapes. A bread machine bakes in a pan. Rustic, country hearth loaves are shaped as round boules or oval batards (or torpedos), and baked on a deck, without a pan.
  4. Heat. Artisan loaves tend to have firm or even crisp/crunchy crusts. There is no direct temperature control or temperature reading on a bread machine.  A bread machine creates enough heat to bake a dark crust but cannot reach the temperature that bakes crunchy crusts

A bread machine can become a mixer (and a proofing box) on a dough cycle. A dough cycle will have an initial rest or preheat phase many machines (e.g. my Panasonic SD-YD250 had it on all dough cycles except pizza dough). Every machine will reliably mix the ingredients at a slow speed and move up to higher speed to work the dough.  There is some control of time.  For instance to avoid the more intensive mixing – just stop it when it is mixed.  And a pause after slow mixing can be made (to autolyse before more intensive mixing, or to add something), until the end of the phase. A few machines have a pause function, controlled by a button.  Most machines have a power interrupt that restarts the machine at the point in the cycle it stopped after short power outage.  This allows a pause of several minutes by unplugging the machine. The machine must be plugged back in, within the time limit or it goes back to the start of the cycle. There are no options to slow down the mixing or change the time – just stop when you want to stop mixing, and rest or work the the dough.

Dough cycles have a rest phase and a rise phase allowing the dough to ferment in machine, and stop.  The user has options after on when to remove the dough after mixing, and other options:

  • the end of mixing
  • the end of the rise
  • after the end of the cycle for added bulk fermentation time
  • put the dough in the fridge to slow down fermentation
  • knock it down, knead by hand;
  • additional fermentation – a second rise before shaping the loaf

The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (pp. 196-297) offers advice and several recipes/formulas for artisan loaves, using the dough cycle to mix.  At some points, the machine must be paused to prolong the ferment. Many machines can’t be paused, or only paused for short periods. A user may have to stop a machine after mixing and some kneading and set aside the dough and continue kneading after a long delay. A bread machine does not have a continue kneading program. A user will need to deal with additional kneading. shaping, benching and baking in an oven.

Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook has a recipe for French whole wheat artisan loaf using a dough program at p. 206. I used {Whole Wheat} Dough program. BLBMC advises a knock down, additional fermentation/rise after the dough cycle.  The steps after the dough is out of the machi3ne are shaping a torpedo loaf, final proof, scoring the loaf and baking at 400 F for 32-48 minutes:

  • 347 g. (2.5 cups) whole wheat flour
  • .5 cup spelt flour
  • {4.3 g. (.75 tsp)} salt [BLBMC 1.5 tsp]
  • {3.1 g. (1 tsp)} instant yeast [BLBMC 4 tsp]
  • 1 5/16 cups (1.25 + 1 tbsp) buttermilk
  • .5 cup water

The loaf looks like a loaf of rye bread – it has a dark crust.  The crust is soft, as might be expected with whole wheat.  It has a sticky crumb that leaves a residue on the bread knife, like an artisan OEM product sold in the local Thifty’s over the last two years before fall 2018.  The crumb is not as darkly coloured as 100%  whole wheat recipes which use dark brown sugar or molasses and oil – and not as dense.

Yeast measurement for bread machines

Table of Contents

Yeast for a Panasonic machine

Low salt

I had tried, with the machine I had before the Panasonic SD-YD250 bread machine (acquired in 2016), to use less salt than the recipe says. For a reduction of salt by 50%, I followed the rule of thumb of reducing salt and yeast equally by weight. For low sodium I cut yeast in equal proportions by weight1This is a rule of thumb which has be adjusted based on the recipe and the machine, according to experience!. The principle is to reduce yeast by the same percentage as salt as suggested in The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (“BLBMC“) at p. 290 and by the May 2016 post on the Please Don’t Pass the Salt bread page. 

I used 50% of salt and 50% of the instant yeast for SAF instant yeast in a BLBMC recipe. If the recipe says 1.5 tsp salt, as many recipes did, I calculated salt by weight as 1.5 x 5.7 g. = 8.6 g, and I used 4.3 grams salt. If the recipe said 2 tsp. instant yeast, as many recipes did, which weighs 6.2 g. I would use 3.1 g.

There has to be a lower limit to this method – all bread needs some yeast or leavening to rise.

Problem

When I started to bake in the Panasonic SD-YD250 bread machine, I had a problem. Medium loaves (1.5 lb.), both low sodium and regular recipe, based on the BLBMC filled the  pan, and had airy, weak crumb; some ballooned or cratered/collapsed/imploded. The fermentation was excessive for the amount of dough

Panasonic Manual Recipes

Panasonic’s recipes (in the manual; see its online recipe resource pages) call for 3.1 g. instant yeast (1 tsp.) to 417 g total flour weight for a medium (1.5 lb.) loaf; in baker percentage 0.7%. This is half the amount of yeast for loaves that size in BLBMC recipes:

  • 1 tsp (instead of 2 tsp or more ) for 3 cups of flour for a medium loaf;
  • 1.5 tsp. for 4.375 cups of flour for extra large loaves.

Another clue – the Panasonic SD-YD250 will bake an extra large (2.5 lb) loaf that may take more than 4 cups of flour but the yeast dispenser does not hold much more that a tablespoon. And an observation – set for medium loaves, basic bake and whole wheat cycles, the Panasonic SD-YD250 mixes for 3 minutes, kneads and rests to rise before baking. The knead time of 20-30 minutes is a little longer than for many machines. The rise phase is 2 hours, more or less, depending on the size of the loaf. The rise is longer by about 25-30 minutes than the rise in other machines.

Bread baked in the Panasonic SD-YD250 bread machine does not need as much yeast as recipes from sources other than the Panasonic manual. The main differences between the Panasonic and machine and older bread machines are:

  • Gluten formation, and
  • Fermentation:
    • longer “rise” periods,
    • programmed heating during fermentation periods – the baking pan is warmed by the element, turning the baking space into a warm proofing box.

The long rise in a warm space allows the yeast to produce more gas. A small amount of yeast, given time and good conditions, leavens more dough,

Less yeast

I was able to use BLBMC formulas for white, whole wheat, and multigrain formulas requiring 2 tsp. instant yeast (6.2 g.) for a medium loaf (a formula with 3 cups or 15 oz. flour +/- by weight) by adjusting the yeast to 1 tsp. (3.12 g.). This produced loaves that were properly inflated.

This adjustment works for almost any recipe not specifically written for a Panasonic machine:

  • (BLBMC formulas have different amounts of SAF instant yeast and “bread machine yeast”. Ignore the amount of “bread machine yeast” in a BLBMC formula and use the amount for SAF instant yeast);
  • Weigh the yeast and salt; know the correct conversion factors:
    • 1 tsp of instant yeast weighs 3.12 or 3.15 grams, and
    • A recipe refers to conventionally ground table salt; 1 tsp weighs 5.7 grams;

I note the BLBMC/recipe amount of instant yeast. I calculate a “Panasonic” adjustment by halving the yeast stated in the BLBMC. For my Panasonic, this became the amount of yeast for the recipe. This reduction prevented the overflow/balloon problem and mixed dough that baked into bread. I did not change salt from the recipe in testing this adjustment in yeast.

I was not able to determine that 50% is absolutely the right conversion factor. It leavened the dough and prevented the ballooning loaves.

Other machines

Bread machines differ. Recipes for bread machine loaves cannot necessarily be used in different machines without making adjustments.

Salt and Yeast

I continued to bake with 50% of the salt in a recipe. As noted, my approach had been to halve both salt and yeast.

Where I had cut yeast to the low instant Panasonic number, I would cut this again to match the salt reduction. This meant I would use only 25% of the BLBMC or recipe yeast to bake 50% salt bread in the Panasonic. This worked cutting salt and cutting yeast that much, but began to affect results.

The rule of cutting yeast for the machine and cutting again by half when I reduce salt by half works reasonably well if I leave more than 1.4 g (half a teaspoon) of instant yeast for 3 cups of bread flour. If I cut salt more, I will have experiment to find the amount of instant yeast that will ferment and make a dough that flows and rises. I will have to adjust yeast differently when I eventually replace the Panasonic machine.

Panasonic SD-YD250 Bread Machine

I bought a Panasonic SD-YD250 bread machine in 2016. After some setbacks, I put it aside. I came back to it and spent time troubleshooting the main problem: the right amount of yeast for bread in this machine.

Reviews at Everyday Sandwich and Make Bread at Home describe and illustrate this machine.  Like other Panasonic 2.5 lb loaf machines, the SD-RD250 and the SD-YR2500, it has loaf size settings for medium (1.5 lb), large (2 lb) and extra large (2.5 lb) loaves baked in a tall vertical rectangle pan. It does not have a setting for small (1 lb.) loaves. Medium and large loaves are shaped like tall loaves baked in loaf pans. Extra large loaves are long when laid down, and relatively wide and tall, compared to other loaf shapes.

The lid does not have a viewing window. Unlike most bread machines, it has a yeast dispenser. The dispenser has drawbacks. The dropper – a little button – has to be jiggled to make sure it is seated before filling the compartment. The yeast dispenser is not an essential feature. Users can keep yeast away from the water before the mixing phase in a machine which takes dry ingredients first (at the bottom of the pan) is to put yeast first, before the flour.

The SD-YD250 can bake daily or sandwich bread,with white flour or whole wheat. Also, loaves made with specialty varieties of wheat, (e.g. spelt). It can bake loaves with other flour or meal added to wheat flour (e.g. light rye – a mixture of white flour and rye flour, although manufacturer deprecates using rye flour).

The pan coating releases the loaf easily at the end of the bake cycle but the paddle stays on the shaft in the pan. (Removing the paddle from the pan can be done immediately with an oven mitt, or after the pan cools after taking the loaf from pan.  It works better before the bits of crumb around the end of the shaft dry out and bond the paddle to the shaft.)

The inside measurements of the pan are 19 cm (7.5 inches) long by 14 cm (5.5 inches) wide in the pan’s normal operating configuration when it is vertical. Any loaf will be or should be 19 cm x 14 cm.   The pan is 14.5 cm (5.7 inches) bottom to top. In a Panasonic extra large pan, a 2.5 lb. recipe of 4.4 cups of flour and about 2 cups of liquid would bake a loaf over 14.5 cm “long”, 19 cm “high”, and 14 cm “wide”.

The instruction book recommends dry ingredients be loaded first.

There are two kinds of program, bake and dough.  The dough process has three phases; a bake cycle has the fourth one:

  • (Initial) Rest – the ingredients come to a common temperature. The heating element, as far as I can tell is used for short intervals but not enough to heat the outside of the machine;
  • Knead – a two part phase. 1. Mix the ingredients together, hydrates the flour; 2. Knead to work the proteins in the flour into gluten;
  • Rise – fermentation. 2 hours in basic bake. The heating element is deployed to keep yeast at a good temperature (the dough may heat up on its own) on a cooler day. The mixer drive is deployed for knockdowns in this phase;
  • Bake – the heating element bakes the bread.

It has basic and whole wheat programs. The basic and whole wheat bake programs have variations – basic, sandwich, rapid, and raisin. In the bake programs, there is a setting for loaf size, M, L, or XL. This affects the length of knead and rise phases.

There are no notable differences between the basic bake and bake sandwich programs, or the whole wheat bake, whole wheat sandwich bake, and multi-grain bake programs. There are no differences between the whole wheat dough and multi-grain dough programs. The raisin programs are the same as the bake and dough programs, with an added warning sound when raisins can be added to the dough. Other programs:

  • a rapid dough program called pizza.
  • a program called bake only.
  • a French Bread program. This provides a longer rise in dough and bake modes, and a longer bake time. There is no loaf size selection; the recipe in the manual for the bake mode has three cups of flour, (which would make dough for a medium 1 ½ lb. bread machine loaf) but produces a loaf that fills the XL pan.

It does not have an identified gluten-free program. There is no program to mix and make bread leavened with other methods (e.g.. baking powder). Breads that are mixed but not kneaded can be mixed outside the machine, and baked in the bake-only program. It does not have customizeable settings or custom programs.

It has a delay timer that can be programmed to finish (and start) at a time up to 13 hours after loading and starting the machine.

A medium loaf in the basic bake program has about 3 cups of flour and 1.25 cups of water or fluid. Dough for a loaf this size, hydrated at 71,  could be baked in a 1.5 pound bread pan (about 2,600 cubic centimeters) – perhaps filling it. A 1.5 pound conventional oven pan is 25 cm (10 inches) long, 13 cm (5 inches) wide and (about) 8 cm deep.

With white flour in the basic bake program, the height of  medium loaf from the bottom of the pan to top of the loaf at the wall of the pan would be around 75% of the height of the extra large pan: about 9 cm at the side of the pan. To the top of the domed top of the loaf, 11-12 cm is reasonable; more is tall.  Height changes with:

  • type of flour (e.g. rye flour does not rise as well as wheat flour); or a small change in the amount of flour (1/4 cup), water, salt or yeast; or
  • cycle, e.g. French Bake – the bread rises and is less dense – more space for the same mass.

The motor has two speeds: off and on.  Mixing involves turning the power on and off in short intervals.  Mixing, for a medium loaf, on any cycle, is under 5 minutes:

  • 30 seconds – 40 pulses: 1/2 second on, 1/4 second off;
  • 120 seconds – 120 pulses: 3/4 quarter second on, 1/4 second off;
  • 30 seconds on;
  • The yeast dispenser drops yeast;
  • 35 second pause.
  • 60 seconds – 10 pulses: 4 seconds on, 2 seconds off.

The mixing forms a ball of dough centered on the paddle.

To knead dough, the machine pushes it around the pan. The dough sticks to the sides of the pan, and is stretched until it snaps away. This is similiar to the operation of a stand mixer, with pauses. This involves longer intervals with the motor on.

This machine has a long rise. The manual does not indicate that the heater warms the pan while the dough is “rising” (either primarary fermentation or secondary/proofing) but there may be some heat to aid the dough to rise.

The devices uses the motor for short intervals twice to deflate(knock down) the dough. In basic bake there are 2 sets of about 15 slow turns  at – 2:00 and – 1:40 on the countdown timer. After the second knock down (50 minutes before baking phase)  the dough should relax and flow to fill the bottom of the pan and rise again. In the first part of the bake phase, the dough should spring. A tenacious dough holds its ball shape for a long time. It may gather at one end of the pan.  The result is that the top of the baked loaf slopes. This happens with some dough in this kind of pan.  There is a hydration zone.  A tenacious dough may not flow.  A wet dough may balloon or collapse.

It supports low sodium baking, as any bread machine does. If the salt is reduced, the yeast should be reduced by the same proportion.

This Panasonic model uses less yeast than machines by other brands. It kneads hard and gives the dough a long rise, with a bit of heat to keep the dough at the right temperature to ferment. It deflates the dough softly in short knock-downs. It needs only about half as much yeast as other machines. This means, with many or most recipes, for 50% sodium, I am using half the salt and one quarter of the yeast.

Bread Machines

Table of Contents

Introduction

Purpose

Bread machines came on the market about 1986, and became popular outside Japan by the late 1990s.  My first bread machine was a Black & Decker B1561. I replaced it with a Panasonic  SD-YD250 in 2016, and a Zojirushi Virtuoso (the 2016 model, the BB-PAC20) in 2020 [Updated].

A bread machine is a labour saving tool. A bread machine makes one unsliced loaf at a time. Bread machine bread will have a dense uniform crumb that is strong enough be sliced. The crust will be firm but not crisp. Lacking preservatives, bread machine bread may become stale or grow mould after a few days.

Bread machines process milled grain flour with water, salt, yeast or another leavener, and other ingredients to produce the processed food “bread” – yhey bake bread. They start with processed or plain ingredients. Bread machines use standard bakers’ supplies – flour, fluids, sugar, salt, rising agent (yeast or chemical), seeds, herbs, fruit, nuts etc. They mix the ingredients, process dough and bake dough until the dough becomes a baked product.

A bread machine has a heating element, a motor, a removable pan mounted to the frame, a paddle shaped mixing device (it may be called a dough hook or kneader) connected to the power train by a shaft in sealed bearings at the bottom of the pan. Machines may be used 2 or three times a week for several years. Modern machines have durable no-stick coatings. The pan is a mixing bowl and a baking pan. The size of the pan determines the maximum or optimal amount of ingredients to avoid a loaf that overflows the pan. It is possible to bake loaves that are smaller than the space available inside a bread machine pan, but it takes some planning.

Expectations

Bread machines follow the series of steps followed by professional bakers and home cooks. The designer can program combinations of steps that should produce results with some combinations of ingredients if the machine is loaded properly. The ingredients are mixed and kneaded. The machine has to wait while the dough rises, and then bake the dough into bread. Each step takes time. Manufacturers try to speed up the process by processing the dough differently or adding more rising agent to increase the speed and magnitude of the rise of the dough.

Bread machines are not all the same. Web sites may say that they all work the same way. Beth Hensperger tried to write recipes that worked well in all bread machines in

  • Robotic Kneads, a chapter in The Bread Bible: Beth Hensperger’s 300 Favourite Recipes (1999), and
  • The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (2000),

A bread machine can produce enriched (sandwich) bread similiar to the bread produced by commercial bakeries, generally without preservatives. Some bread machines can produce unbaked dough. Some can be used to bake cakes or mix jam.

There are a few conventional ways of talking about some features of bread machines.

Bread machines all have containers that serve as mixing bowls and baking pans. Bread machines are described by reference to the volume of the pan and the capacity to bake a loaf (by comparison, 1 pound loaf would be regular in a bakery or a home baking recipe; 1.5 pounds would be large:

  • small loaf – 1 lb. – 2 cups of flour;
  • medium loaf – 1.5 lb. – 3 cups of flour;
  • large loaf – 2 lb.- 4 cups of flour; and
  • extra large – 2.5 or 3 lb.

The pans have similiar shapes – there are a few general types. The mixing pans have mixing paddles inside the pan, with mechanisms to connect the paddles to a drive system in the machine.The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (Harvard Common Press, 2000) (BLBMC) calls bread machine pans tall, horizontal, and vertical rectangle. Pan shape dictates the shape of the loaf :

  • The tall pan has one paddle in the middle at the bottom; it may be square or oval.  A machine that makes small and medium loaves will have a “tall” pan. 
  • Machines with horizontal pans produce loaves shaped like bread produced in a bakery. These pans have two paddles.
  • A machine that makes 2 pound loaves may be tall, horizontal or vertical rectangle. 
  • Machines that bake 2.5 and 3 pound loaves will have vertical rectangle pans, with a single paddle – e.g. Panasonic 250 or 2500 models; Breville Custom Loaf XL.

Bread machines usually have basic bake and whole wheat bake programs.

  • The basic program is for dough made from white flour milled from wheat – usually higher protein “bread” flour. Basic bake is for enriched bread, made with bread flour, with sugar, milk, butter or oil, or sandwich bread. This program is usually the choice for loaves that use a blend of bread flour and whole wheat, rye and other flours . The basic bake program is versatile enough to make some lean loaves, although lean breads may also be baked in a French bread program or a custom program if a machine has those features.
  • The whole wheat bake program will knead longer and change other phases. These programs work with thousands of recipes,

Whole wheat flour and bread flour weigh the same amount per unit of volume, Bread flour has more of the proteins that bond to form gluten. It is mixed, kneaded and handled differently.

Other cycles:

  • Bake (Rapid), Turbo, Quick Bake, Rapid, etc. They will knead for close to the normal time. They shorten the rise phase(s) but require more yeast for faster fermentation, hence the “Quick” or “Rapid” rising aspect of these programs. Some knead more vigorously. Most will call for more rising agent, or a different rising agent (e.g. a quick-rise or rapid-rise yeast) for a rapid rise or quick-rise program. The dough, to reduce the total time, is programmed to rise once and not knocked down or risen a second or third time.The BLBMC noted there were serious differences between machines with regard to these programs.
  • French or European Bake. These programs have longer rise and bake phases to bake lean crusty loaves. Some machines allow users to create custom settings (e.g. Breville BBM800XL and some Zojirushi models) to set the times for phases to get this program as a custom.
  • Cake or Quick Bread. Quick Breads is a term that bakers use to refer to bread leavened by rising agents other than yeast. This program is for bread and other baked goods leavened with baking powder or baking soda e.g. corn bread and cakes. It mix ingredients into a batter. The leavening agent starts to act as soon as the batter is wet, until the batters sets. Batter made this way can be baked as soon as the mixing has stopped
  • Dough programs mix and knead, and rise but omit the baking phase
  • Bake only – a feature on some machines noted in the BLBMC. It is not common.
  • Jam – some machines have programs to mix jam.

The differences between basic bake, French/European, and the custom program. Times (Panasonic medium loaf, Zojirushi default) in minutes. Baking temp. not tested or published by manufacturers.

MachineProgramRestMix/kneadRiseRise 1Rise 2Rise 3Bake
Panasonic SD-YD250 Basic301511050
Zorjirushi BB-PAC20Basic311935204060
Panasonic SD-YD250 French401017555
Zorjirushi BB-PAC20 Custom –
French/Euro		2218355070

Some gluten-free recipes involve chemical leaven e.g. baking powder, baking soda and can be baked in a cake program. For loaves leavened without yeast, which are traditionally called “Quick Bread’ (BLBMC p. 538) Hensperger prefers the quick bread program or cake program hat mixes a batter and bakes. In the BLBMC (2000), Beth Hensperger addressed gluten-free (p. 170) baking as making bread with yeast as the rising agent, from specialty flour – flour that lacks gluten but could form crumb with additives that made dough gummy. Hensperger suggested using a quick rise bake program. Gluten-free dough has to be mixed and kneaded which occurs in the mix/knead phase in a bread machine program, and then requires time to rise. Some manufacturers including Zojirushi have built their machines with that kind of gluten-free program

Manufacturers are competitive and rely on marketing to sell their own machines. Manufacturers have not agreed on standards and do not use language the same way.

Most bread machines have a user manual and a recipe booklet. It is worth reading these to determine the basic amounts of flour, water, salt and yeast for basic loaves in the machine’s wheat flour programs – basic bread, whole wheat, European/French. A recipe that has worked in one brand machine cannot be used in another brand. Recipes have to be adjusted for different machines.

Resources, Conventions

There are a few more books and a few web sites about bread machines (and many sites with recipes). Some web sites:

There are reviews on the Web – buried in search engine result under superficial reviews and marketing material (SEO is not the consumer’s friend). Some review site are platforms for marketing and promotion or gateways to marketing sites. Comprehensive reviews by knowledgable reviewers are rare. Consumer Reports may never have done breadmakers or bread machines. Culinary magazines snip and snipe. Amateur reviews tend to recite manufacturer marketing claims or focus on features that someone believes are persuavive to consumers, and not on the machine or the bread. The reviews at Breadmakerguides.com are throrough and informative, but the site is not comprehensive. The New York Times affiliate Wirecutter site tackled the subject periodically (eg. 2019), but only covers a few machines.

A bread machine can be used to bake artisinal loaves but there are usually no built-in programs or functions. The machine can be used as a mixer in a dough program, and the dough can be rested, shaped and baked. It is possible, for some loaves, to leave the dough in the pan and stop the machine, and put the pan back and bake the loave after it has fermented and risen.

In bread machines, as in industrial bakeries, the product depends on the recipe, the process and measurement. Beth Hensperger in the BLBMC, consistently with other baking books, list ingredients by volume but suggests weighing ingredients. A user selects a program, which a manufacturer or writer may call a “course” or “cycle”. It takes from 3 to 4 hours or more, after loading the machine, to run a program and bake bread in a “regular” baking program (as opposed to the quick or rapid options available with almost all machines). Some reviewers say a long cycle is a drawback. But a long cycle may bake a better loaf more consistently.

These are expensive appliances. There is little discussion of repairs after the warranty period, and little public discussion about the ability and willingness of manufacturers to supply repair parts, at any price, over the life of a machine.

The machines are susceptible to failure. The drive system, including the drive shafts, is largely not accessible. Some manufacturers will sell a replacement assembly such as a mixing/baking pan. Replacing a pan may be the only way to repair a failure in the bearing and seals of the drive shafts in a pan.

Constraints

Baking

A home baker needs space, several vessels or machines to mix and rest dough, baking pans and an oven.

Bread dough has to be viscous (the standard engineering term) or tenacious or elastic (bakers’ jargon) but extensible (more bakers’ jargon). Dough must be tenacious (elastic) enough to hold shape until the loaf is baked – the dough has become a loaf of “crumb” coasted in “crust”. A tenacious dough holds its shape until the loaf bakes and the heat kills the yeast. When the baker is producing loaves in pans in industrial ovens, the baker needs extensible dough that flows, fills the pan and rises. A home baker may put the dough in bread pans or shape the dough by hand before baking it in the oven. A bread machine pan, like an oven pan, shapes the loaf.

Most programs require the use of wheat flour to form gluten and and yeast to biologically ferment dough. High protein white flour (USA bread flour or Canadian All Purpose flour) and regular grind whole wheat flour (coarse ground is available) are similar in density, weight, starch and protein but form gluten, ferment, rise and bake differently. Whole wheat flour has bran and wheat germ. In traditional baking, it has to be mixed longer to distribute fluid and ensure hydration. There are different approaches to kneading, with some favouring less and others more. In a bread machine, kneading is a succession of stop and go operations of the motor and drive train.

If the user has not loaded the machine properly, the dough will be wrong after the initial mix. The wet flour should be a sticky mass that forms into an elastic, tenacious ball of dough. A dry dough will not knead, flow and rise.  A wet dough may collapse. A dough may be saved by the addition of water or flour during the initial mix and before the knead/mix starts – or ruined by an excessive or untimely intervention. Ideally, the machine should be paused and then allowed to return to mixing. Stopping and restarting the machine will go back to the start of the initial rest. It will eventually get back to mixing, but time will be lost, gluten will have started to form, and some fermentation will have occurred.

Controls

Baking programs have four main phases called, usually, rest, knead, rise, and bake. Bread machine programs vary the length of time in the phases and other parameters. Most machines will count down minutes and seconds to the conclusion of the program in the timer display. Some machines will display the program phase:

  • In the intitial rest phase for a half hour or an hour after being started, bread machines appear to sit and do nothing. Some machines may use the heating element for a few seconds at a time, to warm the ingredients to a common temperature before mixing.
  • The first active phase is mixing and/or “kneading”, about 20-30 minutes or more. A bread machine mixes or kneads by turning the padde(s). The machine will not identify mixing and kneading as separate operations on the machine display:
    • Mixing involves turning the power on and off in short intervals, for 3-5 minutes, imitating the action of a mixing machine at slow speed. The flour, once wet, becomes a mass and then a sticky ball adhering to the paddle(s). The BLBMC calls initial slow mixing Knead 1.
    • The machine pause for less than two minutes between mixing and kneading. The BLBMC calls the second phase mix/knead Knead 2. The bread machine is kneading when it is starts turn the dough quickly for longer intervals, broken by short pauses. Centrifugal force stretches the dough away from the paddle(s). In a machine with two paddles, the ball passes back and forth from paddle to paddle – occasionally the dough tears into two balls – this is not a good thing. The edges of the ball stick to the paddle(s) and pan. The movement stretches the dough until the dough pulls away and moves.
  • During the rise phase the gluten relaxes, the yeast ferments some starch producing gas trapped in little gluten balloons, which makes the dough rise; the dough flows to fill the pan and take the shape of the pan. A baker divides dough and puts it in oven pans. Two hours in a bread machine is short compared to the rise/rests in some artisinal baking techniques, but compares to the combined times for bulk fermentation and proofing (bench and pan) in many bakeries. The machine turns the paddle(s) at intervals in the rise phase, deflating and moving the dough ball – in most machines and programs, twice. The deflated dough fills up again. It is supposed to flow across the bottom of the pan or flow to fill the pan, and expand upward. After the second knock down the dough should relax and flow to fill the bottom of the pan and rise again. When the oven element is turned on, the dough rises in every direction. This “spring” is supposed to push the dough into the four corners of the pan, and fill the pan. Some machines – e.g. – Zojirushi graph the rise into Rise 1 , 2 & 3 and display the subphases in the display.
  • The heating element is switched on for a bake phase. The designer expects the machine to reach the right temperature with that element heating the air inside that space – there is no direct temperature control setting in most machines. A bread machine does not bake quite as hot as kitchen oven; any machine puts out enough heat to bake the dough completely without burning the crust.