Bread for Bread Machines

Making bread in a bread machine is way different than making it from scratch. Mainly in that it's almost ballistic how you just throw a bunch of shit together and then bread comes out. Usually you can adjust things in the middle of the process to make different stuff happen. But the upside is if you don't have an oven, you can still make bread. So here we are.

Basic French Bread (with preferment)

This recipe I adapted from the recipe book for the Zojirushi BBCC-S15, a 1-1.5 pound bread machine. This recipe may need to be scaled for your machine.

Ingredients

The Preferment

• 180g water
• 180g flour
• 1/16 teaspoon (a pinch) yeast

The Rest of the Dough

• 60g water
• 6g salt
• 8g sugar
• 13g olive oil
• 7g honey
• 180g flour
• 2 teaspoons scant/7g yeast

Notes

• I've subbed molasses for honey and it works great.

Cookware

The Preferment

• Small sealed container than can go in the fridge with a wide mouth (super wide mouthed jar is good)
• Small mixing utensil (spoon or spatula)
• Measuring spoons
• Scale

The Dough

• Bread machine
• Scale

Instructions

The Preferment

1. Add the three ingredients into your small sealed container. Mix them just until well combined (no chunks of flour).
2. Put in the fridge for about 8-12 hours.

The Rest of the Dough

1. Measure out the water and use some of it to release your preferment by pouring the water into the same container the preferment is in. Pour all of this mixture into the bread machine's pan.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients into the pan.
3. Start the french bread cycle. Done.

References

Last modified: 202502011726