Next up was Bread Machine Kitchen Handbook, by Jennie Shapter. Now, this week was a little unusual. We had a bread machine for many years and regularly used it to cook a fairly stock white or brown bread. We were bought, or perhaps we purchased this book ourselves to augment the instructions that came with the bread machine. To be honest, we haven’t used it that much. That fact combined with Mrs B regularly making some amazing sourdough, I found it challenging to decide what bread to bake from the book. Therefore I decided I would try something I’d never tried before. Firstly, I thought I would try to make French bread, which really scared me to attempt. Secondly, I thought I would use the breadmaker differently from how we usually use it. Therefore, it was just making dough for the French bread and for a Teabread just baking the mixture. I have to say that dough in the bread maker is not necessarily the best place to make it, but I’m glad we tried. I’m blessed that we have several really great kitchen gadgets: A Thermomix, which is astounding, and a beautiful KitchenAid stand mixer, both of which we use for making dough. I’m not sure the breadmaker is a better at making dough than these gadgets. However, suppose I didn’t have these and only had a bread maker. In that case, it could be a really serious contender – mainly since I think it gets the heat just right for prooving. The French bread that we made was delicious. I’m not sure whether it was exactly like a baguette. Still, when served with Joe Pratt’s rather beautiful Effortless Bouillabaise, an absolute winner of the recipe, this really was great bread. Later in the week, we made a really great Mixed Fruit Teabread. This was a simple tea bread which we then baked in the bread machine. I think it would be easier to bake in the oven. Still, the flavour and texture of his tea bread was absolutely brilliant, so we will definitely be making that again. Next time we’re going to be attempting the impressive flavours of India!