How to "oven bake" your bread machine dough: A Tutorial :)

Scroll to the end of this post for the recipe I use :)

I've mentioned before that I found a wonderful bread machine at my local thrift store for 5 dollars. It was dusty and "schmutzy" but it cleaned up beautifully and works like a charm. I actually bake bread twice a week and we dont' buy sandwich bread at all any more. When I originally bought the machine, I added the ingredients and let the bread maker do it's magic. What is no so magical is the weird shaped "block" of bread you get with that obnoxious hole in the bottom. For those of you who know my wonderful hubby, you won't be surprised to hear that he was not a fan of the large square loafs of bread. I had to cut down 2 sides of every slice to make them more of a "normal" size piece of bread and the pieces at the end of the loaf with the hole from the paddle were also not that exciting. So I searched for online info on how to make the switch to oven baking. I found a great article and I've never looked back! Now my loafs are the right shape to make my hubby happy and there is no paddle hole :) I even read an article about a woman who made bread to give as gifts one year and accidentally gave away a loaf that still had the paddle inside it!

Now I use my bread maker for dough kneading and bake my loafs in my oven. Any loaf style bread can be made this way. Oven baked bread is much different that bread machine breads. The taste will be the same, but the texture and crust will be very different.

My beautiful and trusty bread maker!

It's not hard to do at all (or you know I wouldn't be doing it)

First, make your dough in the machine on the dough cycle.

While the dough is "working" in the machine, spray your bread pan with olive oil. ( I use a 10" by 5" bread pan for a 1 1/2 pound loaf) I found this great ceramic bread pan at the thrift store as well.

I use well floured parchment paper as my work surface to keep the dough from sticking and it makes clean up so much easier :)

After your machine beeps that the dough is ready, drop it out onto your floured parchment paper.

Punch the dough down, dusting with flour if needed to keep the dough from sticking to your hands. It's important to get all the air out of the dough or you could end up with large ugly air pockets in your loaf....and nobody wants that :) Once the dough is deflated, shape it into a flat rectangle.

Roll the dough up jelly roll style. You'll want it to be as long as your bread pan.

Place the dough with the seam down into your prepared pan. Cut a slit down the center of the loaf with a sharp knife about 1/2" deep, leaving about 1" uncut on each end.

Lightly spray the top of the loaf as well as the inside of the cling wrap with olive oil to prevent sticking when it rises. Loosely cover the loaf with cling wrap. (If you don't want to use cling wrap here, you can use a damp - but not wet - kitchen towel instead)

Place inside warm oven for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, close the door. I set my timer to 1 hour and check on it. Depending on the weather and the humidity sometimes it only takes an hour to rise, sometimes it takes 1 1/2 hours.

Once the bread has risen, take it out of the oven and carefully remove the cling wrap. Set oven temp to 350 degrees. When the oven reaches 350 degrees, bake the loaf for 30 minutes.

Remove your oh so yummy smelling bread from the oven and allow to sit for 10 minutes. (Try to control yourself and not pull off a huge chunk and slather with butter.......)

Remove from the pan and place on a rack to cool completely. You don't want soggy bread.

You should wait at least 30 minutes before you cut into your loaf. I cover mine with a clean kitchen towel and allow it to cool completely. I've left it this way overnight and it doesn't dry out. Always allow your bread to cool completely. Putting it away warm will cause it to sweat and get moldy.

In the beginning I used one of those slicing guides to make sure my slices were even, but I've been doing this for a while now and I don't use it anymore, but they are helpful.

And I have 2 of these and don't know what I'd do without them! They keep your bread fresh and wonderful. I've never had a moldy or dry bread using these guys. You can find them at Walmart.com for about 13.00.

This may seem like a lot of work, but it seriously only takes a few minutes and it's sooooo worth it! And if you are giving bread away as a gift, it looks so much prettier this way too!

The Recipe
Makes 1 1/2 pound loaf

2 tsp active dry yeast
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups bread flour
3/4 cup rye flour
2 tsp salt
1 tblsp butter
1 1/2 tblsp molassis
3 tblsp honey
1 cup warm water