re: Breville Breadmaker - trouble with recipes in the book

These Breville breadmaker reviewers had the same problems - and worked them out:

"the ingredient quantities for the 1.25kg loaf (largest size!) gave heavy/dense loaves which only just reached the top of the breadpan! We then discovered (when using the 'French' bread recipe!) that the 'Dove Organic Bread flours' we use obviously absorb a lot more water than suggested in the recipes (we had to add 60ml during the cycle to get it to a dough consistency!). Also the recipe times given in the instruction book show there is little time difference between the unmodified 1.25kg and 1kg (middle size!) loaves - which probably meant there was not enough rising time for the heavier amount of ingredients.

Decided to weigh the ingredients for a 1kg French loaf and increase the water (by 100ml!), 1/2 the salt and still use the 1.25kg 'French' setting (we also upped the rise times by 5mins each + upped the bake time to maximum!) The resulting loaves have been HUGE (they try and escape out the breadmaker!!), and the bread so light and fluffy - even with 1/3 wholemeal flour!!!!! (omit the wholemeal for a 'traditional' french bread though!)."

"The machine is VERY easy to use - only the first loaf didn't work - we didn't realise we'd bought a semi-wholemeal flour and we put it on a white bread cycle. You just need a good set of scales to accurately measure the ingredients."