Finally bought a bread maker! Kent atta and bread maker.
Too early for a balanced review. But so far finding it very useful.
No holiday getaways
No outings
Days are slipping away
Waiting for an Amazon order of a Kent breadmaker and the anticipation of using it had suddenly taken on a larger than life significance and generated growing excitement.
Finally it arrived and we immediately put it to use and dropped in the ingredients to prepare a 500gms quick bread. Within a few hours we were rewarded with soothing aroma and the delectable taste of freshly baked bread.
The next day it was white bread.
And a day later, a tasty milk bread made using a youtube recipe found online
I have never really been inclined towards cooking or for that matter spending time baking bread or other goodies at home, except for maybe cup cakes. Preferred to always buy bread, pizza, other baked stuff.
But the pandemic caused a mind shift.
Completely stopped even our regular Dominoes, Taco bell deliveries… Started making them at home since last April. The quality has not been that great considering I don’t have baking cooking instinct, interest or the innate talent.
So for someone like me, the bread maker feels like a boon. It can bake different types of bread end-to-end in hours, takes care of fermentation, resting, etc. Can even bake cake, knead atta or poori dough in minutes, apart from some more programs. As well as pizza dough. For that matter any dough. And the dough it outputs is ready to be used to make anything from buns, cinnamons, breads in custom shapes, etc. The given recipe booklet with it is limited like a starter kit and has primarily vegan recipes (so no milk or eggs in most of the recipes).
But I guess all bread machines work on similar principles. So all those recipes and youtube videos for baking in bread machine can be explored.
After three successfuls runs of bread making that produced delicious breads using maida, the confidence level rose. Enough to attempt an atta bread.
The first attempt at making atta bread in the Kent Bread maker using the ‘Sweet bread’ program failed miserably. The bread that popped out was a clay-like dense lump of atta.
Unwilling to give-up on making atta bread, went ahead and did some research.
Found out that adding Wheat gluten and bread improver can help achieve the store-bought bread like texture, as unlike refined flour/maida, the whole wheat flour lacks gluten. And gluten is crucial for giving the dough its elastic consistency and strength.
I was hesitant to add gluten or bread improvers, so instead tried to soften the texture with milk and eggs.
The result of the experiment was a soft and crumbly whole wheat bread with a distinct home-made flavour and texture, though it still does not match the store-bought bread.
Sharing the recipe below.
Crumbly Whole Wheat Bread
100%Ashirwaad Atta. 0%maida
1) Liquids:
1/4 cup water
1/8 cup honey
2 small eggs
3/4 cup milk
Beat the above ingredients together and keep the liquid mixture aside.
2) 3/4 Tsp teaspoons salt
3) 1/4 Cup butter softened
4) 300gms whole wheat flour
5) 1 Tbsp Instance Active yeast
Remove the bread baking tin from the bread maker and attach the paddle.
Add the above ingredients, in the sequential order specified or better still as per your bread machine manufacturer’s instructions. Ensure the yeast is not touching any of the liquids. Affix the bread making tin in the machine.
Set the program to Whole Wheat Bread and start the Bread machine and voila after a few hours the bread is ready!
A.R Sara 