Bread Maker Drama.

I expect this should be one of my most boring blog posts. If you actually get to the end of it, you shall get a prize. Hey now! No scrolling down to see what the prize is. That's just plain cheating and it won't be tolerated around Nepper's Landing! And yes, I plan to write an entire post about bread makers. Lets be serious, you need something to keep you entertained while at work, or during your kids nap time, or during your retirement. The internet couldn't possibly offer anything more titillating than Holly's thoughts on bread makers.

So when we got married, we got our first bread maker. We were like "for real" married for 3 months, and then we moved in with friends for the next three months, and then lived on the oil rigs off and on for the next year. When I say "for real" married I don't mean like we pretended to be married or didn't consummate things (OK, that just got a bit awkward, sorry Mom), I mean that we lived in our own house for 3 months. Like how grown ups do. We lived in our grown up house with jobs, and cars, and kitchen appliances, including a bread maker. In a very non-grown up way, we never actually touched the bread maker. Ever. Once we moved in with our friends, the bread maker was put lovingly into storage for the next year.

Oh, and if you happen to be the person who did buy the bread maker for our wedding, thank you. And know that it eventually did get much usage! So fast forward to mid-2006 when I finally tried my bread maker for the first time.

Here she is. The first born.

This was a great bread maker which lasted probably 2-3 years and I was using it on a weekly basis, if not more. We would often set it up before we went to bed, and then woke to fresh bread in the morning. A wonderful way to wake up! It seems that over time, the exposure to water over such long periods of time broke down the seal on the base of the pan (water was the first ingredient in the pan, so it just sat on this ring at the bottom of the pan for 8 hours or more). So eventually the pan would start to leak into the baking chamber, which is virtually impossible to clean and just got worse over time. When the first one finally kicked it, I picked up the exact same bread maker off of kijiji and it lasted about a year. The same thing eventually happened, which we kind of expected.

So last fall I was on the hunt for another bread maker and I was able to pick up this beauty, for a mere $5, off of kijiji...
A GoldStar. A super retro machine, but I was very impressed with it. It was basically the exact same pan as the Black and Decker, so I just continued to use my favorite recipe. This gal lasted 8 months! For $5! Talk about a bargain! You can barely buy a loaf of bread for that much money!

So two weeks ago, I was about to put on a loaf on when I noticed that there was a bit of water on the counter top. Ack. I knew what was coming, but I hoped against hope I'd at least get one more loaf out of her. And I did! I put on my facebook status, "At least my $5 bread maker had the class to put out one last loaf before it died." I was impressed. Apparently the water continued to leak throughout the baking cycle and essentially welded the pan to the chamber. Like it.will.not.come.out. Oh well, I got my final loaf, which was delicious. It almost felt like sacrificial bread. She died to give me this one last loaf. Sigh.

For the last two weeks I've been hunting for a new bread maker. It was getting almost stupid. Like I'd e-mail someone, "Hi, I'd like to buy your bread maker...today." And no reply. This happened over and over again. Perhaps my bread maker keenness scared people, but I was a desperate woman. Last week on my grocery shop I had to do the unthinkable...buy bread.

So yesterday I found a guy in Sherwood Park who was going to give me a bread maker, and deliver it, all for $30. A bit of a increase after my last deal, but heck, if you want to bring it to me...I'm sold! So he came by last night with a shiny, beautiful bread maker that I would guesstimate has made maybe 2 loaves of bread. Ever! This is why its so brilliant to buy second hand ones. They are a fairly trendy item. People think "Oh I'm going to be a kitchen diva and make my own bread," and then shazam, over a period of 4 years they've only used it twice and just want to be rid of the bloody thing.

Anyway...I've returned to my Black and Decker ways. Here's the newest addition...
I haven't had a horizontal pan yet, but I can't imagine it will be much different. This one actually has really good consumer ratings, so that's a good sign. I assume that the seal will eventually go on this one, but when I consider I paid $6.50 for two loaves of bread last week, I should get my money's worth within 10 weeks (we normally go through one loaf per week).

Here is my beloved bread recipe. I don't really make much else, because this bread is just so freakin' delicious.

7 Grain Cereal Bread

Put into pan in the same order as they're listed...
1 1/3 Cups Water
2 Tbsp. Powdered Milk
2 Tbsp. Canola Oil
2 Tbsp. Honey
1 1/2 tsp. Salt
1 3/4 Cups White Flour
1 1/4 Cups Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 Cup 7 Grain Cereal
1 1/4 tsp. Yeast

*Holly's Notes: First of all, I recited that recipe entirely from memory, so that is proof of my bread maker prowess. I believe this is for a 1.5 lb vertical loaf, so I hope it continues to work in a horizontal pan (can't really see why not). The recipe called for "shortening" and we have always used canola. Just use plain old flour, none of this special bread maker flour business is necessary. I have bought anything from 7 grain to 13 grain cereal. You can find it in bulk at a lot of places, but if not, you can buy it in the cereal aisle, usually by the oatmeal. I also sometimes do 1/4 Cup of 7 Grain Cereal and 1/4 of Ground Flax seed. I just buy the Fleischmann's yeast in a jar.

So there you have it. Holly's random bread maker thoughts. So what's the prize for putting up with my dreadfully boring bread maker ranting you ask? Well, how about if you ever come to my house, you shall get a piece of my most delicious bread maker bread? Shipping bread is just not a good idea, but when I'm in my bread maker groove its pretty rare we don't have a loaf on the go.

And thus...the bread maker drama is over, for hopefully at least a year.