The Bread Machine

A year or so ago, a good family friend gave me this bread machine. It sat in our pantry, taking up space. Then, after eating some tasty bread from my sister-in-law's bread machine, I was inspired to dust off the machine and put it to work...thus beginning the saga of The Bread Machine.

It started innocently enough. The Thursday following my tasty sampling, my brother and I went to Meijer, and I spent around 1/3 of my weekly grocery budget on bread machine ingredients. My first mistake was I didn't look to see how much dry milk was required per loaf. Not knowing that it is only a couple of tablespoons, I bought enough dry milk to feed my family for a year if the cows decide to quit producing. But I figured even if we would have to skimp on groceries for a week, we would at least have tasty bread. That Saturday, Jason headed to the Colts game, and though I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to go cheer on the Colts, at least I would get to make some bread. I excitedly put in all the ingredients, plugged it in, watched it preheat, and then it began the "knead 1" cycle. After about 5 seconds, though I had never operated such a machine, I knew something must be wrong. The machine sounded like an off balance washing machine. So I called my sister-in-law. No, she said, it shouldn't be making that loud of a noise. After about 5 minutes the ingredients should be mixed in a nice ball. 10 minutes passed, I had a headache, and the ingredients didn't look like they had moved. So I called my sister-in-law again. Maybe it is the kneading blade, she said. So I dumped all the ingredients out and examined the kneading blade. It looked just like the diagram in the instruction booklet, so I dumped all the ingredients back in and gave it another 10 minute cycle. Same thing. So again I dumped out all the ingredients. It had to be the kneading blade. My sister-in-law said the kneading blade should come right out, but it wouldn't budge. It must be in backwards. I tried a knife. Then pliers. Then a wrench. Then a shoestring wrapped around and tugged with all my might. It would not budge. So now I had a broken bread machine, a mess of a kitchen, and no bread. I cleaned up my mess, set the bread machine aside, and then remembered that my mom had a bread machine in my childhood. I talked with my mom, and yes, she still had the bread machine, and no she doesn't use it. She let me borrow it the next week.

However, this one did not have a manual. How different can it be, I thought? So I got out all the ingredients, dumped them in, and started the cycle. Five minutes after I started, Jason got out the broken machine. Convinced he could get it to work, he began on his own loaf of bread. Upset that he didn't believe that I knew how to operate a bread machine and knowing the additional mess this would create, I let him know that he was responsible for cleaning up. He dumped the ingredients in, pressed start, and what????? No banging noise. The dough started looking like a ball. I looked in my machine, now running for ten minutes. The dough was looking a little dry. Well, to wrap up this little tale, I will just post for you the end results, and you be the judge of the professional bread machine maker in the house.

Mine is on the left, and his is on the right.

I'm not sure what we all can learn from this tale - Deb can't operate machinery? Jason can fix anything? It's best to have a manual when operating a bread machine? Well, regardless, we now have a working bread machine, and Mom, I will be returning yours shortly. And yes, for all of you infomercial fans out there, that IS a Magic Bullet in the background.