How to Convert a Bread Machine Recipe to Hand Made
rec.food.cooking/ Beth Jarvis Hart (1998)

Nothing easier! Bread machines generally do stuff sorta backward. You add salt, sugar, liquid, THEN the flour and FINALLY the yeast. Just start with the yeast, liquid & sugar, then add salt and whatever else, then the flour. Flour is the big variable. Sometime you need more (or less) than the recipe.

Mix the wet stuff with a spoon. Add and stir in flour until it gets too stiff to stir. Dump it out onto a floured breadboard and knead until the surface is smooth and silightly resilient.

Grease a big bowl (about 2-3 qt.). Grease the dough top by plopping it into the greased bowl, grab the dough ball and flip it over so the
greased part is on top and the ungreased is on the bottom. Cover with a cloth (or not) and put someplace warm to raise until doubled in
bulk.

When doubled, punch down, form a loaf by kneading and shaping then put in a greased loaf pan or on a greased baking sheet. Let rise until almost doubled, pop into 350 oven and bake until done (bread recipes are single loaf recipes.)

You don't need a mixer or food processor. For some of us, the bread machine is a dough mixer. I convert non-bread machine recipes to bread machine recipes based on the amount of liquid and flour called for in the recipe. Some I bake in the machine, and some I bake in the oven. Depends on the desired finish product. - Beth Jarvis Hart