Monday, February 9, 2009

Give us this day.........

The UPS man came to our house last week.

He brought us a special package that brought JOY to my heart!








We gathered the family around and opened the box.




What could it be?




Can you guess?











Is the anticipation just too much?




Do you have any idea what it is?






It's one of these!





A BRAND NEW BREAD MAKING MACHINE!!!!!!


TA DA!!!!!



(please notice the Vanna White-ish "Here's the fabulous prize" hands being used by Max and CJ)

(Yes, I forced them to do this.)


(And No, Max is not still in his pajamas at 10:00 in the morning. It was like 9:30, 9:45 at the latest)





We took this magnificent, MAGICAL machine out of the box, and stared in awe at it's greatness.




(Isn't it lovely? Does it just make your heart leap with joy ?)



At this point, I held up one of the styrofoam blocks which had been used in the packaging of our lovely bread making wonder. I looked at Aaron who had been eyeing the styrofoam packaging and gave him a look.

"THE" look.


You know the one, the "tight lipped stern frown, head slightly tilted, one eyebrow raised" glare.


The look of excitement left Aaron's face. "OK Mom" he sighed "I won't turn the styrofoam into snow."

And I was so glad that we got this settled before he broke the styrofoam block into a bazillion little pieces and distributed them all over the house.

He loves to do that.





Anyway, back to the making of the bread!


I started to read the instruction manual, but finally decided on watching the handy video instead.
We sat down as a family, and watched the riveting demonstration on bread making. And just for the record, we did not make fun of the lady in the video.






Really, we didn't.







Then, it was time for us to make our own bread!


First, we put in the water and the flour.




Then the sugar, dry milk, butter and yeast.


( the whole time we were doing this, we did not imitate or make fun of the lady on the instructional video)




(Really, we didn't)



(Notice Max's "Vanna hands")





Then we put the pan in the bread machine.




Turned it on, and waited for the magic to begin.



The little window at the top was a point of fascination for the kids. They stood there shining a flashlight inside to watch the bread being made.



For like two hours.





The heavenly aroma of baking bread filled our home. We could hardly wait for the bread to be finished!


Finally, our dear breadmaker beeped, indicating the bread was finished!!!







We gathered round, and slowly I lifted the lid to reveal...............









One great big loaf of really ugly bread.

(Not that I've ever made butt ugly bread before)







YIKES!!



I went ahead and sliced up the strange looking loaf, and what do you know?

It was delicious!!


And completely devoured within a few minutes.

Now, I do need to add that the first loaf was the only one to look like that (except for the one time when I kind of forgot to put the mixer paddles in, and didn't realize this until about an hour into the process and at that point had to dump everything out, put the paddles in and then dump it back in and start over) The rest of the loaves have turned out quite nicely.

Since then I've made quite a bit of bread. I don't have pictures of the other perfect looking loaves, because they seem to disappear before I can get my camera.


Over all, I will give the Zojirushi home bakery a 5 star rating!!

We love it!
Especially the timer feature, which allows us to wake up to a fresh warm loaf of homemade bread in the morning.

22 comments:

Kristina P. said...

How exciting!

We used to have one in high school when it was all the rage, and I could never make a decent loaf of bread. I had a bread machine! They alwasy turned out sunken, or they didn't rise, etc. I am so humiliated.

Jules AF said...

Yuuum fresh bread.

The Hillbilly Banjo Queen: said...

My parents have one of these and they are amazing! And I want one. Happy bread making!

Karen said...

We have a bread machine and make some delicious loaves. It's especially wonderful when you have it on a cold night with home-made soup......mmmmmmmmmmmm.

Unknown said...

You are such a blogger!! I love that you took pictures of the entire process :)

We use our bread maker alot, in fact we bought a second one at the DI since one loaf of bread disappears in about 30 minutes!!

Yummy fresh bread, MMMMMM!!

Annette Lyon said...

Who cares if it's ugly bread if it tastes divine?

M said...

Congratulations! I'm thrilled for you. I want to get rid of our bread machine (Betty Crocker edition)as the loaves always turn out only 1/2 has high as they're supposed to. Yes, my yeast is fine. It's been suggested that I use bread flour but the whole point, to me, of making homemade bread is to be cheap and specialty flours just aren't.

My husband, however, thinks it's worth 30 cents a pound to transport that blasted thing north. Men.


Ah, well, I hope this keeps working for you; perhaps Zojirushi is just a better brand!

I had to delete my WV as your kids read it. It was snexatt - can you guess?

Jo said...

LOVE the Vanna hands! Max does that well. We have an older version of your bread machine and it has rocked for years. You are right, that first loaf is really butt ugly.

Me (aka Danielle) said...

I don't use it very often, but I love my bread machine! Yay for you! I hadn't ever thought of using the timer and waking to fresh bread..You have inspired me.

Tausha said...

I am jealous! I have always wanted to be able to make bread-just don't know how to do it. I know that the bread machine is supposedly a thing of the past but now I really WANT one!!! Do you know how much bread is at the store? Do you know how much my children eat? It's crazy!!! I think that my mom has one in her pantry and never uses it. I just might have to go and take it!!

mCat said...

What is so sad is that now my husband is going to be completely JEALOUS! He wants a bread maker SO BAD!! I ask him if he wants a wheat grinder to go with it. He is not amused. And really, no matter what bread looks like - it's yummy!

MamaHen Em said...

I love my bread maker!! We use it all the time! And my chickies love to watch it too. It's better than tv! Love the Vanna hands!

Mum-me said...

Yep, those children of yours are destined to be 'hand' models. They've got the technique perfected.

And I thinkyour ugly loaf of bread looked wonderful. Wonderfully BIG! The only breadmakers I've found here make a half-size loaf .... and there's 8 in our family .... so I won't be buying one just yet.

b. said...

This is awesome!

I love how he continues with his jazz...er, I mean Vanna hands clear through to the end. Yugmy bread and all.

Hey It's Di said...

I need one of those. I don't bake bread....or much of anything for that matter. I'm afraid that would be a bad thing because like chocolate, I can't seem to forget a good loaf of bread.

Bonnie the Boss said...

So cool and yes, I love his adorable Vannah hands!

Jessica G. said...

I love my bread maker! I haven't used it in a while...might be time to haul it out again.

Suburban Correspondent said...

I used to have a bread machine that I could set to cook a loaf overnight. We would wake up to the heavenly aroma of baking bread wafting up the stairs.

And then, I got pregnant. Who knew that fresh-baked bread could smell so nauseating?

LisAway said...

As if any of us would ever suspect you or your family of making fun of anything dorky. Come on.

That' bread looks terrible. I really wish I could have had a piece of it. Mmmmmm.

Cookie said...

ROFL! Did the video show you how to make such beautiful bread?

Elizabeth said...

I would have said "Carol Merril" hands...but that would be dating myself back to the old Let's Make a Deal era!
LOVE fresh bread!!!
Blessings, E

PS, for tomorrow:
NOTELLU...Toddlers way of letting you know that your question is none of your business...
"You ask, but I notellu"

Erin said...

I have this exact Zojirushi! And I absolutely love it! I have a recipe that I use almost every time I make bread in it, and it works (and looks) perfectly every time. E-mail me if you are interested in the recipe.