The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook Top Quality

I bought this book at the same time that I purchased my first bread machine (a Sunbeam 5891). Many reviewers sang the praises of Beth Hensberger's book, and I was excited at getting started with baking bread at home. I was looking to lose weight and eat healthier whole-grain bread with most of my meals.

Bread machines have absolutely lived up to everything that I hoped; in fact, I've moved on to a better machine. This book, on the other hand, was a disappointment. Three stars is the most that I can give. I am amazed at the number of 5-star ratings that the book received.

While the book does indeed provide a large number of recipes, only 28 use whole-grain flour, and in some of these the whole-grain flour is less than half of the total flour -- sometimes much less.

But the worst problem is that the vast majority of recipes in the book contain the dreaded words, "This recipe is not suitable for use with the Delay Timer." In other words, it contains ingredients that cannot safely sit at room temperature for hours before the baking cycle begins. This means you cannot use these recipes for baking bread overnight, ready to wake you at breakfast. It also means that you cannot use them to bake during the day while you are at work, ready to be eaten hot with dinner. I can only conclude that the book is primarily intended for homemakers who will be home 3 - 4 hours after the cycle starts, ready to pull the hot bread out of the machine and let it cool. (While one could bake the bread immediately and leave it in the machine after baking, you would be risking having it dry out. I don't recommended it.)

I counted at least 214 recipes that said "This recipe is not suitable for use with the Delay Timer," or required the baker to pull out the dough and bake it in the over, or required the baker to interrupt the machine cycle some hours after starting and restart. None of these 214 recipes can be made overnight or while you are away at the office. In the Sweet Breads chapter, I did not seen *any* recipes that did not have these problems!

Yes, some of the recipes are quite tasty, and the machine does bake them well. But I am rarely able to make them given my busy schedule and tendency to be away from home on weekends.

If you believe, as I do, that the real glory of the bread machine is its crockpot-like ability to bake bread while you are *not* home, ready to be served upon your arrival, look elsewhere for your bread recipes.
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