Making Bread with a Bread Machine

[Edwin]

Years ago in the mid 1990s we got a bread machine. Carol used it to make lots of bread. It was a machine that you could set a timer to begin making the bread in the middle of the night, and when morning would come your bread was ready to eat. Carol made lots of bread with that machine. Where we moved into the Cascade Mountain Range, they had a wonderful bakery, which made really healthy loaves of bread, so we took our bread machine home, and bought our bread from the bakery instead. We were there for 10 years, so we gave our bread machine to one of our kids, and I think they are still using it.

Bread machines were really popular, and cost a quite a bit of money to buy at first. But their popularity wained, and you could buy then very cheaply at department and hardware stores. My younger sister got started to buying them and giving them away. She gave one to us, and Carol used it for a while, but I'm not sure why, but Carol's loaved out of that machine were not turning out. They would fall, or they would only end up half the size they should have been with the top caved in. I can't even remember what she did with that machine; threw it away or gave it away. I bought Carol a bread machine at a thrift store last winter, and she used it for a while. It was stuck on one setting, and couldn't be adjusted, none of the buttons would work! Because it would not change settings or modes, she decided that she didn't want to use it anymore because baking loaves that didn't turn out right discouraged her, so we set it aside, deciding to take it back and trade it some time or another.

When I was getting my tooth fixed we went to a Salvation Army Thrift Store, and I bought a bread machine for $4.50! We got it home, and the bread was baked about one inch thick, so we gave that one to the chickens! Carol tried it again and found out that the stirring device was not working, so she pulled the dough out and baked it in a pan! I discovered the bearing would not turn in the loaf pan, so I got that freed up, and then I discovered the bearing in the driving mechanism was also bound up, but I couldn't get it freed up, so I took it apart and worked on the pulley below after whcih I did get it freed ukp. Because of the vbearings being bound, someone before I got it tried to use it that way, and burned the belt in two, breaking the belt. Today in town I looked for a belt, and a hardware store offered to order one for me, so we have a belt coming, and when it gets here we will make bread! It is Hatachi, and I think it is a good one, and will be fine when we get a belt! It has lots of settings to make the break however you want it, either with a light crust or dark crust! I am looking forward to seeing what all Carol can do with it once we get the belt!

[Chas]

My bread machine, Panasonic, has given great service for many years until now. Everything seems to be working, but something has changed as the loaves are coming out with a collapsed top. I have no idea what it is causing the problem. The instruction manual says it is a sign that too much water was used, but just used the same as always. Maybe it will work next time, otherwise the machine will be junked. It is too old now to repair (sounds like me )

[Edwin]

Chas, that has been Carol's most common problems with bread machines, making loaves with colapsed tops, or half size loaves. That was her biggest problem with the machine she just gave up on. She has had Panasonics, and I think it was a Panasonic that she gave to the kids when we moved the the remote lake mountainous area. I can't remember the brand that my sister gave her, but it didn't work that well. The one she just gave up on is a Black and Decker, and it probably would have been a good machine, but she says the buttons that are supposed to change to different functions don't work. The function it is on should work, and part of the time it made good loaves, but it started making too many colasped loaves. I think the frozen bearings not allowing the paddle/stirrer to work, and consequently the broken belt is all that is wrong with this Hitachi bread machine. We tried twice before we realized the paddle was not turning. She pulled the dough out the second time, put it in a loaf pan, in the oven and baked a nice loaf of bread. A local hardware store ordered a belt for me, so when it comes I am hoping for good things!

Too old to repair! Very funny! Never too old to repair! Like good wine; it just gets better with age! Ask some of the young ladies, Chas!