Home-cooked food is often better than anything you can find in a supermarket. There is something extremely satisfying about choosing the individual ingredients and putting them together to produce a beautiful, hearty meal. The same goes for baked goods and pastries. Cakes, muffins, scones, pancakes, pies and the like are all more delicious when made from scratch. And fresh bread just out of the oven is one of life’s little pleasures. Perhaps it’s time you learnt how to make your own.

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man

Making your own bread is a good way to save money as you’ll be buying ingredients in bulk and no longer spending your hard earned cash on heavily processed bread from the store. In the current economic climate, you can cut down on ‘luxury’ items such as specialty foods while ensuring that your family has access to wholesome, nutritious home-cooked alternatives.

Most foods tend to lose vitamins and other nutrients as time goes by. This is also true of bread, unless it has been pumped full of additives. This is not the ideal form in which your body can use them. The fresher the food, the better for you.

The basics

A basic bread recipe, according to Jamie Oliver, requires just over two pounds of strong bread flour, just over a pint of lukewarm water, once ounce of fresh yeast, two tablespoons of sugar, one level tablespoon of fine sea salt and some extra flour for dusting.

How simple does that sound? And you can vary the type of flour you use or add whatever ingredients you wish such as nuts and fruits to make wonderful, healthy breads. There are literally hundreds of recipes off- and online.

And if you’re worried about how time consuming this foray into divine domesticity might be, you should not. It’s true that most of us don’t have the time or the energy to bake bread from scratch. That’s why the wondrous breadmaker was invented. So dig the one you received as a wedding present out the back of your pantry and get baking.

For preparing 100% whole wheat bread you need ½ cup water 1 beaten egg, 1 tablespoon of butter and honey each, 2 cups of whole wheat flour and 1 teaspoon of salt. By adding all these ingredients and baking them in the right way you can cook delicious and healthy 100% whole wheat bread. One of the most famous bread makers recipes is of the very healthy Buttermilk and Honey Wheat Bread. For preparing this you need 1 cup of buttermilk, 2 tablespoon of honey, 1 tablespoon butter, ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon baking soda, 1 cup machine flour. ½ cup whole wheat flour and 1 teaspoon yeast.

Always make sure that you cook for the specified amount of time. There are a number of bread maker recipe books available in the market that you can refer as well. Each and every bread maker is provided with a user manual which you should refer to while cooking anything.

You can use your breadmaker to bake sourdough breads but the loaf usually lacks the texture and finish that you get in the one of oven baked sourdough bread. You can thus use the breadmaker till the mixing and kneading stage and complete the procedure by baking it in the oven. So if you would also like to impress your family and guests by preparing those delicious recipes using sourdough bread, get one of those amazing breadmakers available in the market these days and get going with your cooking. Some of the best quality breadmakers from the leading brands in the market include the Panasonic SD-255WXC, Kenwood BM450, Morphy Richards Fastbake Bread Maker 48268, Panasonic SD-254WXC and the Morphy Richards Accents 48271.