ANNUAL HOLIDAY COOKBOOK ISSUE : IN THE KITCHEN : Wry Bread Unplugged : Books for Baking’s Machine Age

When I began baking bread, here is the equipment I needed: steel bowls and a big wooden spoon.

I combined flour and salt in one bowl and water and dried yeast in another. With the spoon, I stirred the two together, adding water until it formed a shaggy mass that felt just right.

I turned that out onto a floured table and pounded and slapped and kneaded until, almost miraculously, that rough hunk of flour and water became as smooth and soft as living skin.

This I set aside in a warm place while it came further to life, growing and swelling. When I knew it had risen enough, I punched it down and divided it into pieces. Each of these pieces I fashioned into loaves, punching and pulling and stretching and rolling.

After another rise, I ever-so-gently transferred these loaves to a cookie sheet that had been spread with cornmeal, painted them with egg wash and slashed the tops. Then I placed them in the oven to bake. They were done when I could tap one on the bottom and get a hollow sound, like a door.

Eventually, of course, I invested in some equipment: a heavy-duty mixer and then a food processor. They took some of the heavy lifting out of the kneading, but making bread was still a lot of trouble and, to tell the truth, I didn’t do it all that often.

But when I did, there were two things that made it worthwhile. The first is that for a nice dinner, a good loaf of bread is a necessity, and in those days the only way you could get one was to make your own. The second is subtler. There is something about the feel of the dough under hand and the patient handling of the loaf that is pleasing in a way that is different from other kinds of cooking. Bread baking is a cooperative venture between you and the dough.

Still, I haven’t baked more than a couple of loaves in several years now. With good handmade bread available in most groceries, what would be the point?

So I admit a certain bias when it came to trying out the bread machine. No, let me put that a little more strongly: I don’t own even a microwave and I certainly never expected to buy a bread machine.

This is not some knee-jerk Luddite reaction against kitchen technology. If any hammer-wielding know-nothing came anywhere near my Cuisinart, well, he’d probably get conked on the head with my KitchenAid. And that would hurt.

But in my kitchen, equipment must serve a purpose. First, obviously, it must make the job of cooking easier. At the same time, it must create a better product than you could without using it, or one at least as good.

Could the bread machine meet those tests? That was the question in mind when I bought one. And frankly, it didn’t give me a good feeling that the first thing most bread machine enthusiasts say about their toys is that they like the smell of bread baking when they wake up.

The first loaf I baked came from the manufacturer’s cookbook. I quickly learned that with these machines, none of the basic bakers’ skills count. All you need to be able to do is measure.

You measure the water and pour it in the pan. You measure the flour and add it. You measure the salt and sugar and add them (almost all of the bread machine recipes contain sugar; I don’t know whether this is because it is necessary for a good rise or is simply a matter of questionable taste). You measure the yeast and add it. With some machines, the order is different.

Then you punch a couple of buttons and you go away. The bread is done when the machine tells you it is.

Making the first loaf was something of an exploration. The new machine had quirks and noises that were strange to me. First, for the initial half hour, it seems to do nothing. It sits, warming the ingredients. Then, when the timer says it’s ready, it begins to knead, making a noise that can best be compared to the sounds my stomach makes when I’m in a meeting and lunch is late.

On it goes, kneading and resting and rising until it decides the bread is ready to bake. That’s when you start to really notice the smell. That homely perfume of flour and yeast is about the only connection between bread machine baking and the old way.

Finally, almost four hours later, the machine emits a timid little beeping, like the sound of a cheap watch. After a brief cooling, the bread slides out of its non-stick container.

It’s an ugly thing, there’s no two ways about it. In the first place, it’s vertical. Bread is supposed to be horizontal. But beyond that, there is something vaguely tumorous about this loaf; the top is misshapen with swells and folds no baker would have made. And there’s a deep navel in the bottom, where the bread machine’s mixing blade sits.

When it’s sliced, the bread is, well, adequate. A really persnickety baker would notice that the crumb is very close and moist. And anyone who has eaten good bread will notice that this comes much closer to the old standby commercial loaf than to anything from a home oven.

So I moved on to the cookbooks. First, “Bread Machine Baking: Perfect Every Time,” by Lora Brody and Millie Apter (William Morrow: 1993). I had liked some of Brody’s other books and, hey, any time someone co-writes a cookbook with her mom, you’ve got to give it a chance.

The first thing I learned from this book is that all bread machines do not cook alike--some take more yeast, some more water. Brody and Apter’s solution was to adapt each recipe for seven types of bread machines. That was obviously quite a bit of work, but not quite enough. My machine--from a major manufacturer--was not among those they tested. So I tried comparing some of the recipes that came with my machine with similar recipes in the book to figure out which of the machines they tested was closest to mine.

Actually, even after trying a couple of the recipes, I am still not sure I broke the code. The breads from this book were no worse than those from the instruction manual, but they weren’t all that much better either. The most successful was a brioche with dried cherries. The texture was actually fairly close to a real brioche, and if you’ve ever tried working that sticky, wet dough by hand, perhaps you can appreciate a machine that does everything for you.

*

Several bread machine fans on my Internet cooking group swore by “Bread Machine Magic” by Linda Rehberg and Lois Conway (St. Martin’s Press: 1992), so I gave it a try. Rehberg and Conway don’t get quite so involved in the recipe variations, and the breads turned out every bit as good as the ones from Brody’s and Apter’s book, which is to say, um, OK.

I probably liked the Black Forest pumpernickel better than any other bread I’d tried to that point; most likely because it had a more assertive flavor than the others. In the absence of the simple virtues of good bread, it’s the tricky breads that seem most impressive.

And, freed from the bonds of process, bread machine recipe writers have cut loose with flavored breads like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Some of these creations are positively baroque. Remember how the food processor loosed a flood of bizarre purees? The same thing is happening again. What are we to make, for example, of Curried Pistachio Bread? Or Brown Rice and Almond Bread?

Given the machine’s seeming proclivity for overpowering flavors, I was skeptical about “Rustic European Breads From Your Bread Machine” by Linda West Eckhardt and Diana Collingwood Butts (Doubleday: 1995, $25).

Eckhardt and Butts’ previous book, “Bread in Half the Time” (Doubleday: 1991), had earned some praise for its creative manipulation of the food processor and microwave to make honest bread in rapid order. It seemed that the jump to the bread machine was probably not that great a leap.

What I found was more manipulation, but pretty successful manipulation. Most newer bread machines have a dough cycle--essentially eliminating the baking and turning the machine into a mixer and proofer. To make Eckhardt and Butts’ simple pain au levain , you first use the bread machine to make a sourdough starter. The next day you use the bread machine to make a sponge. Then you use the bread machine to make the dough. Finally, you remove the dough, shape it by hand and bake it the old-fashioned way--in an oven.

This has the virtue of giving you a little more contact with the bread and it produces an acceptable loaf of sourdough bread--not Poila^ne, by any means, but about what you would expect from a not-terribly-experienced home baker’s first try. In my experience with bread machines, this ranks as a triumph.

Finally, though, you have to ask yourself what purpose these machines serve. They’re more convenient than making bread yourself, but less so than a trip to the grocery store. The bread is somewhat better than the industrial brands, but it’s certainly not as good as made-from-scratch (or a decent artisanal loaf).

So what you wind up with is a series of cheap compromises. Essentially, what you’ve done is replace a steel bowl and wooden spoon with a $200 machine and traded replaced your baker’s brain for a two-bit watch. It only smells like real life.

BLACK FOREST PUMPERNICKEL

This recipe comes from “Bread Machine Magic,” by Linda Rehberg and Lois Conway (St. Martin’s Press: 1992).

1 1/2 cups water (for Welbilt/Dak machines, add 2 tablespoons more water)

1 1/2 cups bread flour

1 cup rye flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 tablespoons oil

1/3 cup molasses

3 tablespoons cocoa powder

1 tablespoon caraway seeds

2 teaspoons active dry yeast for all machines except 1 1/2-pound Panasonic/National machines (use 4 1/2 teaspoons yeast)

Place water, bread, rye and whole wheat flours, salt, oil, molasses, cocoa powder, caraway seeds and yeast in bread pan, select Light Crust setting and press Start.

After baking cycle ends, remove bread from pan, place on cake rack, and allow to cool 1 hour before slicing.

Makes 8 servings.

Each serving contains about:

252 calories; 449 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 4 grams fat; 50 grams carbohydrates; 7 grams protein; 0.64 gram fiber.

PAIN AU LEVAIN

From “Rustic European Breads From Your Bread Machine,” by Linda West Eckhardt and Diana Collingwood Butts (Doubleday: 1995; $25).

STARTER

1 cup bread flour

1/4 teaspoon bread machine yeast

1/2 cup room temperature water

Combine bread flour, yeast and water in bread pan, select Dough cycle and press Start. When cycle is done, leave starter to “work” for 2 to 5 days, or until it smells and tastes pleasantly sour and is bubbly and light. During this time, you may store starter in machine, or transfer starter to jar with lid and store in warm, draft-free place. Knead starter occasionally to stir.

SPONGE

1 1/4 cups bread flour

1/2 cup warm water

Combine starter, flour and water in bread pan, select Dough cycle and press Start.

DOUGH

1 teaspoon bread machine yeast

1 cup warm water

3 cups bread flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 egg white mixed with 2 tablespoons water

When cycle is finished, add yeast, water, flour and salt, select Dough cycle and press Start.

When second cycle is finished, remove dough to work surface dusted with flour. Cut off about 1 cup of dough to start next loaf with. Cut remaining dough in half and form into loaves, cover with plastic wrap and let rise until nearly doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Just before baking, roll loaves onto cornmeal-dusted wooden paddle. Slash loaves diagonally with razor or sharp knife 3 or 4 times. Glaze loaves with egg white mixture, then bake on baking stone in 450-degree oven. Spriz oven 4 or 5 times with plain water during first 10 minutes of baking. Bake loaves until done, about 30 minutes for round loaves, 20 minutes for baguettes. Cool bread on rack before serving.

Makes 8 servings.

Each serving contains about:

328 calories; 303 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 2 grams fat; 65 grams carbohydrates; 11 grams protein; 0.27 gram fiber.