For those of you who make your own bread...

[Gillian76]

Do you use a breadmaker, or your own fair hands???

Am thinking about joining the club

I've only got little worktops, and once you've sprinkled flour across them to roll knead the dough on, it gets onto the floor - and I've got beatiful reddish/brown stone tiles in my kitchen.........and the flour gets into the cracks and makes a mess.

DS's aren't allowed in the kitchen, our oven door gets really hot, and not being very big gets rather dangerous with the 2 of them in their

And my mum used to bake everything from scratch - and I alwasy just remembered seeing flour and dirty bowls and alsorts in the kitchen..think I'll stick to my nice tidy breadmaker (apart from rolls - but they go rock hard )

But then to my credit I do cook ALL my evening meals from scratch using fresh meat and vegetables

and on that smug note I'm off to bed

Well my handbaked stuff seems to be going down well with the kids this morning Not bad if I do say so myself!

Not sure I'd have the discipline to do it every day, though?!

Well, I first used a panasonic breadmaker borrowed from my mum. It was good. We decided to get one for ourselves and I was bought a cheap "cookmaker" one from the argos catalogue.
The recipie book that came with it used different proportions to the panasonic recipe book, but after experimenting we got it sussed and the bread tates good. Usually I uses a mix of just over 50% wholemeal to white and the bread and everyone who eats it says its good. I think you need to adapt the recipes in the books to make them better if at first they don't seem quite right.

Another vote for the panasonic. It makes delicious bread. Eating this bread made me realise how stale and horrible shop-bought bread is in comparison. I would rarely have time to make bread by hand - I usually use the overnight timer - so a breadmaker is a wonderful solution for me.

I have a Kitchen Aid and since working out how to make bread/pizza dough in it I haven't used my bread machine again. No mess either.

I've started making the dough in the bread machine and then hand-finishing it. I have a Morphy Richards b-maker and the crust was always too hard, verging on burnt. Somehow, when I hand finish them, I get two loaves, instead of the one I'd get from the breadmaker - weird! I put some foil or a teatowel over the bread when it comes out of the oven which gives a crust that's just right. I make rolls sometimes, though they end up different sizes as I'm no good at judging how big each piece of dough needs to be.

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suedonim I make the rolls different sizes deliberately! Then we can all pick just the right size depending on how hungry we are.

I have a Panasonic and have used it for over a year now. I think I have maybe bought shop bought bread half a dozen times in the last year and that is when I have been too lazy to make my own (or have forgotten)

I keep meaning to try out all the lovely recipes in the booklet that came with it, but somehow haven't got round to it.....

Lol, Anorak - sounds like Goldilocks & the 3 Bears! Giraffski, I have tried using a knife to cut the dough but it gets all sticky so I'll probably stay with lazy option of having different sized rolls.

How long do you bake them for? - I'm sure my timing isn't quite right yet for rolls.

We bought a bread maker several years ago and haven't looked back since. I do have to admit to buying the breadmaker bread mixes though Ds helps out quite often putting everything in which he couldn't do yet (at 2) if I were doing it by hand, so that's a plus.

I just love the smell of baking bread in the house. Makes it seem so homey. Hmm, maybe I should start a loaf now...

Own fair hands (and those of ds ) Although the bread we mainly make are flat breads

Mine is sat on top of the cupboard but I am now inspired to get it down and bake, my husband will come home from work tomorrow and think he has walked into the wrong house, I shall also be wearing a pink g string just to confuse matters even more

Lol finn2!

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Inspired by my success the other night, I am going to try another loaf this evening. Was thinking about adding some seeds. Do I add them at the beginning and knead in with the dough?