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Bread Machine Cookbook IV
Devotees of unrefined whole-grain flours and natural sweeteners, such as honey, maple syrup and fruit concentrates, love this book. All recipes are low in fat and solium and include a nutritional analysis for fat, protein, carbohydrate, cholesterol and sodium. Author Donna German also tackles special ingredients and substitutions.
- GenresCookbooks
176 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1992
13 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 31, 2019
If you have a bread machine, this series is pretty much essential. This installment focuses on “whole grains & natural sugars”, which means that none of the recipes use white flour or processed sugar. That means a lot of whole wheat and rye, a bit of oatmeal and cornmeal, and a smattering of lesser-known flours such as quinoa or 7/9/12-grain mixes.
Sweetening is added using honey and maple syrup, as well as “fruit juice concentrate”, maple/date sugars, and occasionally actual fruit. There is a note in the beginning, however, that all of these sweeteners are interchangeable with each other and with processed sugar, noting that it’s best to interchange liquid sweeteners with liquid sweeteners, and dry with dry.
Since I don’t keep fruit juice concentrate on hand (and am not even sure what it is), I replaced that with maple syrup in the seeded rye bread, because that recipe already called for some maple syrup. If that harmed the bread, I don’t want to know, because it was already far too good. The seeds are anise, fennel, and caraway. The best of the three breads I’ve made so far from this book.
There’s also a note in the beginning that whole grain flours can vary widely in how much liquid they need, and I did end up needing to add about a quarter cup (over the 1 ⅓ cup called for) to the maple walnut bread. The dough was clumping together, but not into one ball, into several. This was the only recipe I had to do that for, though, and I used the same whole wheat flour for them all.
Something new for this installment is a note on the bottom for whether or not you can use a timer with the recipe for overnight (or at-work) baking. Basically, it’s a “yes” unless the recipe calls for milk or egg, or it calls for adding nuts/raisins partway into baking. I tried this feature out on the cracked wheat bread (the seeded rye includes egg, and the maple walnut requires adding walnuts after the kneading process) and it worked great. I woke up to a great fresh bread for breakfast.
It obviously isn’t difficult to tell whether a recipe can be set up ahead of time and timed, but having the note at the bottom of each page is a nice reminder of the possibility.
A lot of the recipes call for black bean flakes or black bean powder. The notes in the introduction mention that these are interchangeable with each other and with cocoa—they’re for color. The author provides a table of “interchangeable equivalents for cocoa” that I don’t understand. It has a row for black bean flakes and a row for black bean flour, but no row for cocoa; it has three columns, which could line up with the three difference sizes of bread for each recipe, but that doesn’t make sense because different recipes call for different amounts of black bean flake/flour.
Except for that, this really is a great book. When the maple walnut bread was clearly not kneading correctly, I looked up the symptoms in the front of the book, followed the directions for handling it, and got great bread out of it that would otherwise probably have been dense and hard.
Sweetening is added using honey and maple syrup, as well as “fruit juice concentrate”, maple/date sugars, and occasionally actual fruit. There is a note in the beginning, however, that all of these sweeteners are interchangeable with each other and with processed sugar, noting that it’s best to interchange liquid sweeteners with liquid sweeteners, and dry with dry.
Since I don’t keep fruit juice concentrate on hand (and am not even sure what it is), I replaced that with maple syrup in the seeded rye bread, because that recipe already called for some maple syrup. If that harmed the bread, I don’t want to know, because it was already far too good. The seeds are anise, fennel, and caraway. The best of the three breads I’ve made so far from this book.
There’s also a note in the beginning that whole grain flours can vary widely in how much liquid they need, and I did end up needing to add about a quarter cup (over the 1 ⅓ cup called for) to the maple walnut bread. The dough was clumping together, but not into one ball, into several. This was the only recipe I had to do that for, though, and I used the same whole wheat flour for them all.
Something new for this installment is a note on the bottom for whether or not you can use a timer with the recipe for overnight (or at-work) baking. Basically, it’s a “yes” unless the recipe calls for milk or egg, or it calls for adding nuts/raisins partway into baking. I tried this feature out on the cracked wheat bread (the seeded rye includes egg, and the maple walnut requires adding walnuts after the kneading process) and it worked great. I woke up to a great fresh bread for breakfast.
It obviously isn’t difficult to tell whether a recipe can be set up ahead of time and timed, but having the note at the bottom of each page is a nice reminder of the possibility.
A lot of the recipes call for black bean flakes or black bean powder. The notes in the introduction mention that these are interchangeable with each other and with cocoa—they’re for color. The author provides a table of “interchangeable equivalents for cocoa” that I don’t understand. It has a row for black bean flakes and a row for black bean flour, but no row for cocoa; it has three columns, which could line up with the three difference sizes of bread for each recipe, but that doesn’t make sense because different recipes call for different amounts of black bean flake/flour.
Except for that, this really is a great book. When the maple walnut bread was clearly not kneading correctly, I looked up the symptoms in the front of the book, followed the directions for handling it, and got great bread out of it that would otherwise probably have been dense and hard.
November 8, 2022
Great recipes
February 5, 2025
Black bean flakes
I think the black bean flakes/powder conversion table's columns are meant to correspond to the three recipe sizes, so for the 2 lb recipes, substitute 2 T cocoa powder.
Yeast
I couldn't tell what kind of yeast these recipes are meant to use, so I assumed instant yeast and am converting for SAF yeast from there (by lazily looking at The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook since they all provide instant yeast and SAF yeast amounts).
Pumpernickel recipe
Subbed 2 T cocoa powder for the black bean flakes and used 2 tsp SAF yeast. The top was very slightly fallen. Mom said it was moist and soft.
I think the black bean flakes/powder conversion table's columns are meant to correspond to the three recipe sizes, so for the 2 lb recipes, substitute 2 T cocoa powder.
Yeast
I couldn't tell what kind of yeast these recipes are meant to use, so I assumed instant yeast and am converting for SAF yeast from there (by lazily looking at The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook since they all provide instant yeast and SAF yeast amounts).
Pumpernickel recipe
Subbed 2 T cocoa powder for the black bean flakes and used 2 tsp SAF yeast. The top was very slightly fallen. Mom said it was moist and soft.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews