I remember my grandmother kneading bread dough in a large enamel pan. When she was done kneading she would cover it up with a clean towel and set it in a warm place to raise. She would punch it down when it got to be doubled in volume and let it raise again. After the second raising she would punch it down again and form loaves to put in pans. When the loaves were doubled in size she baked them in a wood stove oven. She would bake six to seven loaves every week.
I remember asking her for the recipe. She giggled and told me she never uses a recipe. I then asked her how she knew what to put in the bread. She told me she puts enough flour into the potato water and yeast and sugar to make a nice elastic dough. She used cake yeast and when she would run low on yeast she would save the water that potatoes were cooked in to use for her bread. She would let the water sit on the warming closet of the wood stove all night. In the morning it would be fermenting. She would add yeast and sugar to the fermenting water and make bread. The flavor of her bread was the best, everyone loved it. I had a dog that would walk to my grandmothers and bark at the door. Grandma would let the dog in. The dog would go straight to the pantry and whine at my grandma until she gave her a piece of bread. That was good bread.
Enter: THE BREAD MACHINE! Some one thought I should have a bread machine to make it easier for me to knead dough. It was a very thoughtful gesture and I appreciated it. After looking at it for a few days I figured I would try it out. I read all the directions and put the ingredients in the order that was given and turned on the machine. I proceeded to make my dinner to be done at the same time the bread was. Everything was smelling good I was looking forward to serving my family a great meal. The bread machine gave a beep to signal it was done. I opened up the machine and took out my bread. It was not a loaf, it was a bowl! I was astonished. What had gone wrong I did not know. So I started all over again making sure to put the ingredients in the correct order and turned it on. The machine beeped again, I opened it up and to my surprise, I had another bread bowl.
That happened a few more times and each time I would give the bread bowl to the dog. She barked at the first one, growled at the second one and wanted nothing to do with the rest. The last one I gave to her she sneezed at it and ran down the trail to my grandmother's.
I finally figured out what went wrong. I was so accustomed to making bread without measuring the yeast that I just put too much yeast in the machine. I had put my usual amount for four loaves. I gave the machine away and went back to the old way. That just goes to show you, sometimes a recipe is a good idea if you measure exactly.
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