I finally gave in several months ago and, lured by the prospect of easy
clean-ups, bought a bread machine. It generally makes ok bread, but the
crusts are too thick and hard. My instruction book suggests that the
addition of milk to the dough keeps the crusts more supple. But I don't
want to put milk in my breads. Is there any other way?
I've been making Anadama by hand for a long time. I tried to convert to
ABM without real success. The flavour is just less intense in the ABM.
I thought maybe my conversion was the problem and tried one of the
recipes that was posted to the list: even less intense flavour (small
wonder, the recipe used less cornmeal and molasses per cup of flour than
my own recipe does). I'm reluctant to up the molasses even more because
of the possible effect of extra sugar on the yeast and the probability of
an even darker and denser crust. Any explanation of why ABM flavour is
weaker? Any suggestions?
Finally, I noticed that the anadama recipes posted to the list had less fat
per cup of flour than my regular recipe does. Would increasing the fat
create problems?
Suzanne Klein