The fate of bread machines

So many bread machines end up in the goodwill. This is too bad. I mean, if it was that people were throwing them out in favor of making bread by hand, that would be great, but I doubt that's why. I guess people prefer buying store bread than spending all of 3 minutes throwing in the flour yeast and water and oil and salt and pressing START. That's all it is, and the result is that 5 hours later (depending on the model...I actually once lived with a bread machine that would make a decent loaf in 20 minutes, which seems impossible, but it did it. It was German I think.) your apartment smells wonderful and you are good on bread for a few days.

My kitchen is so close to my bedroom - I live in a shoe box - I haven't been using the timer feature on my bread machine lately. The noise of the kneeding would wake me up. But if you have a better situation, USE THE TIMER FEATURE. Fresh bread smell when you get up, look out.

I think one reason these fantastic appliances end up on the shelves of goodwills is that they get given as gifts, but the recipients don't know exactly how easy they are to use. So, here's an inexpensive gift idea: go rescue a bread machine from a salvy (there will definitely be one there, probably several), try it at home after a cleaning, and provide simple instructions to whom you give it to, and tell them they are nuts if they don't use this.

I'm going to try the no-kneed recipe that was all the rage a couple years ago and report back. Same author has a newer one for whole grain breads which I may try too. Kneeding bread is good exercise and otherwise therapeutic, so I have mixed feelings about this whole no-kneed method from the get-go, but, it's interesting anyhow and so I'll try it.