I Love My Bread Machine contains 176 pages of yummy photos and 108 delicious sounding recipes.
The book contains traditional white and wheat breads and so much more. The recipes includes breads and rolls that are kneaded by the bread machine but shaped by hand and then baked in an oven. Those breads include flat breads like pizza, naan, pita, and focaccia as well as bagels. There are also quick bread recipes, using baking powder rather than yeast, where the ingredients are combined outside the bread machine and only the baking function of the machine is used. These recipes include gingerbread and a fruit & spice bread that looks like a lighter fruit cake as well as a variation on banana bread. One chapter includes many breads from foreign lands such as French brioche, Italian panettone, and English lardy cake in addition to the familiar doughnuts and English muffins. There is an entire chapter devoted to teabreads and teacakes. There is another containing ten gluten-free bread recipes that are variations on regular breads from earlier chapters. There is also an extensive introduction with tips and tricks for both using a bread machine and adapting personal recipes for bread machine use.
Before reviewing cookbooks, I always try to make a few of their recipes. Using my old faithful Sunbeam bread machine purchased at least twenty years ago, I started with the two simplest white and wheat breads. They looked beautiful up until the end of the baking cycle when they fell like a volcanic caldera. They still tasted delicious but it is hard to make a sandwich with 3″ tall bread. I thought there might be an issue with my bread machine so I cooked my favorite white bread that I have been making for years and it baked fine. So while I Love My Bread Machine’s recipes look delicious, they obviously won’t work in every bread machine. In addition, I’m not sure of the benefit of cooking quick breads in a bread machine rather than in a pan in an oven–possibly a broken oven or a hot day where the oven would heat up the house? For these reasons, I’m giving the book 3 stars.
Thanks to the publisher, Nourish Books, and netgalley for an advanced review copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. This book was published on September 19, 2017.