Magic Mushrooms, No; Flour, Yeast, Sugar and Water, Yes: Bread Machine Magic

Bread Machine Magic - Lois Conway and Linda Rehberg

Foodies may look down their noses at the bread machine, but even diehard fans of attitudinal knife- and tantrum-throwers have to admit that bread-machine loaves are an improvement over grocery-store bread. We’re on our third machine now, having made homemade bread more than two decades. We have several tried-and-true recipes, but that doesn’t mean we’re averse to widening our repertoire, so our copy of Bread Machine Magic has been well-received.

Bread Machine Magic: Contents

Authors Lois Conway and Linda Rehberg revised the original 1992 edition in 2003, cutting the original 139 recipes by one in the process.  We've tried several of the remaining 138, to near-universal success. All recipes are written for bread-machine mixing, although a few are supposed to be removed from the pan and baked in an oven. Versions of several favorite recipes, e.g. Anadama, pumpernickel and seven-grain, can be found in the trade-paperback-sized volume, and we also tried out a number of new varieties.

The layout’s typical of bread-machine cookbooks: first comes an introduction and use tips, followed by a set of seven recipe chapters: (white, whole grain, fruit, vegetable, etc.) and an index. The final chapter seems interesting: besides recipes for pizza dough, focaccia, pretzels, bread sticks, English muffins and lavosh; "Specialty Breads" includes a number of out-of-the-ordinary recipes like Sausage and Pepper Bread.

Anadama Bread Recipe

There's an old wive's tale about this bread. Seems that one grumpy old New Englander and his old wife, Anna, got into a more contentious squabble than usual; so she went home to mother (or perhaps to their daughter). That left the curmudgeon to fend for himself in the kitchen. When he ran out of bread, the man figured he could do it himself as well as his wife. He scrounged around in the pantry, and devised his own recipe from whatever he found. It turned out to be a recipe that makes some darned good bread. When he tasted his first slice, the old man smacked his lips and chortled, "This is for Anna, damn her!" And that's why we call it Anadama Bread.