Suzy bakin' bread part II

Way back in January I wrote this post on my tips for bread making. As I said before it comes from LOTS of practice. People are usually amazed when I say that I bake ALL of our bread, even when working 4 days a week and running around after two active squidgets I still manage to bake our bread. Now I'm not saying this because I'm a big brag, but I want to let y'all in on how I manage to fit it in my life.

Enter the breadmachine, now now before you all stop reading and get all snobby about it let me continue. In my early days of breadmaking I was forever disappointed with the bread turned out by the machine, it was way too dense for ours, or anyone's liking. Plus I'm married to a boy of French descent so bread is REALLY important here. I kept persisting, simply because I'd bought the damn machine and wanted to use it. I then discovered that if I used the machine to mix, knead and rise the dough, then transfer to a proper black bread tin the quality of the loaf improved out of sight.

So that's how I fit it in...I (like most of you) haven't got the time to knead, watch it rise and all of the carry on that goes with baking real bread. I'll leave that for when I retire.

So to the point of the post. Kuka asked me a long long time ago to post about this pumpkin bread. Despite what I've said above, this is one loaf that I let cook in the machine, because the loaf is always light and fluffy...so here is the recipe stolen from my Breville instruction manual.

PUMPKIN BREAD
180ml warm water
2 tabs oil
1/2 cup pumpkin, cooked and mashed
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
3 cups of bread flour
1 teaspoon bread improver
1 1/2 teaspoons milk powder
1 teaspoon of ground cumin
1 1/4 teaspoons yeast

If using a bread machine, put in the machine in that order and bake on a basic setting, ie for a white loaf.
It's really yummy with cream cheese and smoked salmon!!!