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Bread Machine Basics

By Linda Larsen, About.com

The bread machine can be a fabulous appliance if you follow a few special rules. You must carefully read through the instructions and manuals that come with your machine. And for your first attempts, use the recipes in your machine's recipe booklet, because they have been developed for success with that specific product.

Don't know your bread machine's capacity? Here's a great tip from Cajunspice in the Forum. The basics for bread machine baking: have all ingredients at room temperature, follow the recipe ingredient layering instructions carefully, measure correctly, use bread flour and instant or bread machine yeast, practice with basic recipes first, and check the dough consistency after kneading.

You can even use the machine just for kneading and rising, then shape the bread yourself with fancy techniques, and have a ball inventing your own special bread recipes!

Use the information below to use your bread machine to its fullest capacity. You'll learn what to look for when buying a machine, how to compare features and brands, bread machine sizes (did you know there are now horizontal bread machines?), troubleshooting charts and tips, how to convert standard recipes to the bread machine, and generic instructions. Then try the fabulous recipes on the next page!

Informative Sites:

Go to the next page to get the recipes!

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