Fresh Bread at Sea....

[Boasun]

My Mom use to bake bread when I was very young and there is nothing better than fresh bake bread with home made black berry jam.

Do you have fresh bread at sea?
I've heard that some cruisers are using a bread maker while cruising.
So if you are using one of those machines:
Which brand?
Which brand makes the best bread?
Are you Running a Genset while using said machine? How does this balance out your power buget?

Or are you baking the bread in your oven? You could call this the Old Fashion way or the Only way. Pending on your taste buds.

Which is better? one made by hand or by machine.

[rikhall]

Breadmaker???

Bread is so easy to make. Here is a loaf fresh out of the oven, hand made while underway.

The baker was Chef Douglas!



Rik

[RichH]

I make real honest to goodness french baguettes and battards when on board.

You need an oven with a baking stone, a spritz bottle for spraying water and indirect Infrared thermometer to control the all import temp. of the mix. Any good 'artisan' bread recipe/method for pain ordinaire or sourdough will work ... but dont simply blindly follow the 'recipe' but develop (over time) a 'feel' for the bread making 'art'. Its the SLOW controlled rising that makes yeasted bread so damn good.
Away from power, I do the mixing/kneading by hand but in port I use a Kitchen Aide mixer --- to whip up lots of air into and 'develop' the dough. Power mixing is the best and less laborious, but you can easily 'over-knead' and wreck the 'gluten development'.

Nothing beats a well made loaf of french bread ... add a good coffee (from a press!!!) or good bottle of noble red/white and .... ah, life is good.

REAL bread is a treat and much better than a pasty and tasteless 'store-bought'.

[LauderBoy]

Really fresh bread is a weakness of mine. But I think most any bread maker would have a fairly large power draw. Something like 450-800 watts maybe? And then you gotta figure the long cook times.

I love my crock pot too, but that still draws maybe 150-200 watts and there's long cook cycles for that too.

I also don't have an oven, just a stove. I'm sure there are ways to make bread on a stove top though.

[alwheeler98]

You may want to look for recipes for baking bread using a pressure cooker.

[SVAuspicious]

I make bread by hand, let it rise on top of the engine or water heater (somewhere warm), and bake in the oven or grill.

Breadmaker machines are a solution looking for a problem.

[jrd22]

Laurie makes all our bread while on board. Nothing better than fresh whole wheat bread right out of the oven. She grinds the flour before we leave and vac packs it. Next summer she is taking her "spare" grain grinder so we can have fresh flour (no sense in roughing it, eh?) for bread, and corn meal for muffins.

[rikhall]

Originally Posted by jrd22

and corn meal for muffins.

Hey JDR - great point. Corn bread or corn meal muffins - super easy to make.

Also - lots of muffin mixes in your bulk food store - put them in zipped bags and a piece of paper saying what temperature, how much liquid to add and how long to cook. Great on board.

Rik

[genieskip]

On some very long races we made corn bread from some of the easy recipes that include everything in one package, sometimes including the pan. Even the least competent cooks on the crew (at least among those that could read and follow directions) were able to turn out a passable pan of corn bread, most welcome after a week or two at sea.

[eckcn17]

Originally Posted by LauderBoy

Really fresh bread is a weakness of mine. But I think most any bread maker would have a fairly large power draw. Something like 450-800 watts maybe? And then you gotta figure the long cook times.

I love my crock pot too, but that still draws maybe 150-200 watts and there's long cook cycles for that too.

I also don't have an oven, just a stove. I'm sure there are ways to make bread on a stove top though.

check this out!

Windtraveler: cooking