Bread Machine Love.

I love to keep fresh baked bread around the house. Something about the smell just instantly makes it feel like home. It's a detriment to my waistline, but it keeps my family happy and I would love for my children, once grown-up with children of their own, to be taken back to their childhood anytime a waft of fresh bread hits their noses.

But here's the problem....

I SUCK at baking. I mean, absolutely suck. The things I bake don't necessarily taste bad, but they typically tend to look like something out of my dog's ends. No matter what I do, I only seem to be able to produce short, squatty loaves with an unnaturally dense texture. Cue the Red Star bread machine:

I bought this for $20 or so off Craigslist, shoved it in a pantry for 6 months, and finally brought it out a few months ago. I am in LOVE with this piece of equipment. It has become my second favorite piece of equipment in the kitchen, second only to my KitchenAid Pro 6 stand mixer. And don't even get me started on that. I have an unhealthy love for that mixer, the likes of which have only been seen on BBC documentaries (you know the ones....).

This bread machine makes a perfect loaf every time (well, except in the case of "user" error). Just throw your ingredients in, hit the buttons, and go. I feel like I'm cheating every time I use it. I think back to my ancestors who would knead dough until their hands turned raw. Bread this good shouldn't be this easy, I always think, as I happily chew away on a perfect piece of whole wheat toast smothered in sweet homemade marmalade. Now, granted, I can't compare my "instant" bread to a wonderfully made piece of rustic bread infused with years of experience and love, but for someone who has yet to develop that experience and has a ravenous toddler with an obsession for carbohydrates, then my little $20 machine does the trick just fine!