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Re: Bread Machine Crust

Joe Tilman <mrtilman@yahoo.com>
Sun, 2 Dec 2007 10:44:16 -0800 (PST)
v107.n034.5
>My daughter-in-law is having a problem with her newest bread 
>machine, the Zo.  She says the bread is great, but the crust is too 
>hard, and changing the crust setting is not helping. Does anyone 
>have an idea to help her?  I'm still a traditional bread baker and 
>am not familiar with the machines.

There are several possibilities.  The easiest is to use the machine 
only as a kneader and bake in the oven...though that sort of defeats 
the reason for having a nice machine such as the Zo.  Next is trying 
different bread settings:  sweet and sandwich settings will bake at 
lower temps than the basic settings.  She can also (I am assuming she 
has a v20 or x20) program her own cycle.  Or just set a timer to go 
off 5 to 10 minutes before the machine says it is done, and pull the 
loaf out early.  Of course, storing the loaf in plastic softens the 
crust, but doesn't help straight out of the machine.  Lastly, there 
are recipe ingredient variations that will result in softer crusts.

I don't know how the list owners will feel about this [Editor's note: 
it's ok with us to mention them], but there is a Yahoo group 
dedicated to bread machine users:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bread-machine/

Joe T

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