Recently Panasonic asked me if I would like to try their breadmaker for their Ideas Kitchen. I’ve never used a breadmaker before, so I was really excited – especially when the delivery guy turned up with a beautiful, shiny machine the following day. In truth, it’s very, very simple, and it saves you having to do the hard-work-mixing (ie whisking the water into the dry ingredients to aerate the dough) – either by hand or in a stand mixer/food processor – and cleaning the messy bowl. Just mix together the dry ingredients, pour the water into the machine, and then the dry mix. And leave the breadmaker making little noises every now and then (much to Zoë’s delight) and creating delicious aromas.
I made an Easter loaf – with chopped apricots, ground mixed spice and lemon zest. It’s sweet from the small amount of sugar and the apricots, and the flavours sing through. It came out wonderfully moist, with a good rise and a fantastic crust.
* gluten-free, dairy-free, soya-free, egg-free, nut-free, seed-free
- 60g/2¼oz/¹⁄₃ cup potato starch
- 60g/2¼oz/½ cup cornstarch
- 150g/5½oz/heaped ¾ cup brown rice flour
- 50g/1¾oz/¹⁄₃ cup maize flour
- 50g/1¾oz/scant ½ cup gram flour
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp ground mixed spice
- 1 tsp xanthan gum
- zest of ½ lemon
- 150g/5½oz unsulphured dried apricots, chopped into small pieces
- 1 tbsp dried active yeast
- Remove the bread pan and set the kneading blade.
- Sift the flours into a large mixing bowl, add the salt, sugar, spice, xanthan gum and lemon zest and, using a metal whisk, mix thoroughly.
- Pour 350ml tepid water into the bread pan.
- Add the flour mixture, then add the chopped apricots. Wipe the outside of the bread pan to remove any flour or liquid.
- Put the bread pan into the Bread Maker, turn slightly clockwise and close the lid.
- Place the dry yeast in the yeast dispenser.
- Select the bake menu number 12 by pressing the Menu pad.
- Press the Start pad to start the machine.
- When the machine has finished, press the Stop pad, remove the bread and leave to cool on a wire rack.
- *If your Panasonic breadmaker does not have a yeast dispenser, then add the yeast with the flour as per point 4.
- Please note, when I tested this I found that the paddle remained in the loaf which may be caused by the gluten free flour used.
Like the look of the Easter loaf Grace! Will be trying that one. The paddle often sticks in the loaf in bread makers..whichever flour used!
Hi Sophie, Lovely to hear from you and hope you had a fantastic Easter! Many thanks for the paddle advice – much appreciated! x