"My question is, where is the advantage in using a bread machine?"
To add my $.02:
For years before I worked outside the home, I made all my family's
bread. I loved to make bread. I always argued that it wasn't hard at
all, and in fact didn't even take that much time.
Then I started working outside the home. For the last 15 years or so, I
have hardly ever made bread. True, it doesn't take much time actually to
make the bread, *but* you have to be ready for the next step when the
bread is ready. This means you have to be available when the dough needs
to be punched down, available when it needs to be shaped to go into the
bread pan, available to turn on the oven when it has finished rising,
available to take it out of the oven when done. The entire process takes
several hours. It just never seemed to fit into my busy schedule.
Now I have a bread machine. I cannot believe how wonderful it is. I
make bread a couple times a week. In five minutes I can put the
ingredients into the bread pan. I then set the machine for the time I
want the bread to be ready. I can go to work, go to bed, go out to the
store or to a meeting. I have nothing else to do but eat the bread when
it's ready!
As someone else mentioned, to me it's also an advantage that I only get
one loaf at a time (in fact, I purposely bought a machine that only makes
a small loaf). There are only two of us to eat it, and I prefer my bread
fresh.
So while I understand the therapeutic value of making bread by hand, I
wouldn't give up my bread machine. Without it, we'd be back to having no
home-baked bread at all.
Deb * "In this world there are only two tragedies.
kirwan@creighton.edu * One is not getting what one wants, and the other
* is getting it." Oscar Wilde