Bread making machine - does this qualify as baking?

[Fearchara]

I was given a bread making machine a year ago and I started to use it recently. It is great for a learner "Baker" like myself to get started. Is this cheating as the machine mixes the dough, I don't have to knead the dough myself and all I have to do is put all the ingredients in the tub and voilà ! 4 - 5 hours later the machine has finished baking the bread. Make no mistake I have had my fair share of flops as well, obviously not getting the ingredients right! There are some very advanced bread recipes that I will have to attempt where you have to take the dough out of the tub, knead a bit yourself and put it into the oven and not into your bread making machine.

 

[Soliloquy]

I think the important thing these days is not how much time and effort you personally put into it that counts, but knowing for sure that you're not eating something with a load of preservatives and corn syrup in it. Labor saving devices that still allow you to present your family with a warm, homemade slice of bread are a good thing in my book! Though maybe you should bake the occasional loaf from scratch with your kids, just so they can have the experience.

 

[limcid]

I think it definitely qualifies as baking. The only thing the machine does is knead the dough and ensure the timing of everything. Frankly, I don't think anyone would ever knead the dough for as long as a bread machine does. My hands would fall off into the dough before finishing it. Like you mentioned, it's just as easy to mess up a loaf with the machine as it is without it. I think of it as a good assistant with bionic hands and a good stopwatch.

 

[LindaKay]

LOL! I just posted about this...I didn't even see your thread. I don't see why it doesn't count as baking.

 

[cherza]

A bread machine is good to have for a beginner. The machine helps in so many ways. It is so easy to measure ingredients and put them into the machine. It qualifies as baking because of the preparation.

 

[OhioTom76]

Of course it is baking. The bread machine is simply an "all in one" device that tries to take the place of a stand mixer, a proofer and an oven. All your major bakeries use all sorts of equipment, why can't you?

Plus, as you've noted, you don't have to let the machine do all of the work. You can use it to simply mix and knead the dough, then take it from there outside of the machine and rise and bake it in your own oven.\

I owned a couple of bread machines but was never happy with the bread I got out of them. In hindsight, I think two of my problems were I wasn't actually using bread flour (even though I thought the brand I was buying was bread flour) and I also didn't know that you needed to use distilled water, because the chlorine in tap water kills the yeast. I suppose I would have gotten much better results if I had corrected these two things.

 

[NThomas]

I think it is sad that some people think that you have to do every single step of baking for some to be considered home baked. We all just need to give each other a break. If it did not thow its self together and then jump in to the oven all on its own, then yes you can say you baked it.

 

[Samantha Hill]

I love my bread maker. I can be creative and add various ingredients to the mix and leave the machine to do the mixing, proving and baking.Its so nice to wake up to a fresh loaf in the morning. I dont have time stand and watch my bread so the machine is a winner for me

 

[taki]

Of course it qualifies as baking. So many people seem to think that something has to be hard to be 'real' or 'authentic' and this is a big ol' load of horse crap. In the end if your sitting there with two pieces of bread with cheese and meat between them and your munching happily, you have bake a loaf of bread!

 

[ACSAPA]

I don't know. If a person with a bread machine is baking, then what am I doing when I mix the ingredients by hand, knead the dough, let it rise in a warm place, etc. and pull a golden brown loaf of bread out of the oven?
If someone with an automated machine is a baker ,then what am I when I make my bread by hand?

 

[confettine]

Well, there certainly is a bunch of purist that consider that if you don't do the effort yourself, you're not really baking bread -- because without a machine, you would not know how yadda yadda. I sort of see the point, too. I mean... just like there is a difference between washing the dishes yourself and letting the dishwasher wash the dishes, there is a difference between baking your bread yourself and just putting stuff in a machine.

To be serious though -- I really go for the traditional way of getting the kneading right if you want to say you can bake bread, but... Let's be honest. If I had a machine to make other things -- like ice cream, for instance -- I would darn well say I made that ice cream myself! Even if the machine did it for me. I think that the more people take something to heart, the more they will de-value attempts to automate these tasks (just think of how people would not recognize machine-made literature, for example)

 

[JustJoel]

When I’ve finished my dough and have it in the oven (I rarely use the machine for baking; I don’t like the shape of the loaves), I’m covered in flour. I’d say that’s a good sign that I’m baking!

I have moderate arthritis in my hands. It’s not debilitating, but it does make kneading dough for long periods problematic. And I don’t have room in my teensy tinsy, no-storage-space kitchen for my stand mixer and all its attachments, so a bread machine is a good fit for me.

Anyway, isn’t the point that, if you’re baking, you’re a baker! I don’t think how you bake changes that!

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Yes it’s still baking. A lot of bakeries use commercial mixes for cakes, cupcakes, quick breads and muffins. They use premade frozen puff pastry and danish dough. Cake fillings, chocolate coatings and glazes are also premade. So if a bakery can use these ingredients and the person in the kitchen still called a baker, then the person at home using a bread machine should also be a baker.