Adventures of the breadmaker

My oh my am i eating humble pie. I have always considered with slight disdain the bread made in a bread maker. It's my own private little bit of snobbery, that and jam made in a microwave. There confession done. So now for the humble pie. I'm always buying multigrain sliced bread that is never very good and eating it every day. Although i can make bread very well from scratch it takes time, which i am quite short on these days. I also couldn't manage daily kneading due to some discomfort in my hands and joints. I finally decided that actually a breadmaker would have a place in my life right now. Regular bread with no preservatives or additives just all the goodness i choose to add, sounds like a perfect solution. So i put out the call and asked who had one stashed in a back cupboard they didn't want. Turns out my Mum did and she kindly sent it to me a few days later. So i decided to jump straight in and make a multigrain loaf, i followed the instructions and set the timer and in the morning i was so excited to hear the beep and open the lid to find this.

Um? What on earth? lol Not what i was expecting. I had to laugh, i had always thought breadmakers were fool proof, it would appear not! A review of the instructions and i realised i'd used dried yeast instead of active. Round two.

Small windowless building. Wholemeal loaves need bread improvers. Round three.

 Finally! A real loaf! Ironically with white flour and bran because i used all the wholemeal and seeds on the other loaves. Spurred on by success i also whipped up my favourite hot cross bun recipe using the dough function.

Yummy, warm straight from the oven, i had to make sure i tried one straight away, you know just to make sure they were ok for everyone else.....
I see much more good bread in my future and hopefully less windowless buildings.