I've just joined this list, but I've been baking my own bread for
about a year and a half. I realized a couple of years ago that I'm
allergic to corn, which pretty much rules out commercially baked
bread. If anybody else here is similarly allergic, I'll be happy to
swap corn-avoidance tips.
I bought a small-loaf Panasonic and make about five loaves a week,
mostly white, but occasionally whole-wheat or cheese bread. I used to
make a lot of light rye, but I seem to be allergic to that, too :-(.
I'm very pleased with the Panasonic, which gives consistent and
delicious results. The only failures I've had were due to pilot errors
(forgot the paddle, measured wrong) or power outages.
What motivated me to seek out this list was an interest in baking
non-wheat breads. As I'm already allergic to corn and rye, I worry
about becoming sensitized to wheat. One alternative that I recently
heard of is spelt. I bought a couple of pounds at Bread & Circus this
week, but haven't tried it yet. I'm told that I can substitute it for
ordinary bread flour, perhaps with some additional wheat gluten, so I
intend to try that tomorrow.
If you have any experience with alternative flours, or know of a good
book on the subject, please let me (or the entire list) know. I'll be
very interested to hear about it.
On a different topic, this list would be easier to find if it were
mentioned in the Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists (PAML) or the
rec.food.cooking FAQ, both of which are maintained by
arielle@taronga.com. A bread baking Web page would be another good
thing, but that would require some real effort on somebody's part.
Ephraim
[Msg from Jim - As far as I know, this list is in the List of Lists.
I've never heard of the PAML, but I'll add it to the rec.food.cooking FAQ.
Thanks for the tip]