Well, tonight, I went beyond converted to evangelist: we made homemade pizza, with the crust made in the machine, and it was amazingly good.
- 1 c water
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 3 c bread flour
- 1 tsp dried basil
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 1/4 teas bread machine yeast
Add liquids first, then solids, then yeast last, not letting the yeast touch the water. Put in the bread machine on the dough cycle (note to self, this is an hour and a half.) Pull out the dough, let rst 10 to 15 minutes on floured board covered with bowl. Pre-heat oven to 400. Make pizza (pre-baked crust for 8 minutes, baked pizza for 18.)
The crust was delicious, very thick and chewy. In fact, it was thick enough that next time I may take some of the dough and make breadsticks, and thin out the crust a bit. But otherwise, it was perfect; we have no need of buying commercial crust-in-a-can again, which pleases me. And it was dead easy; it seemed almost like magic when I opened the bread machine at the end of the cycle and found a perfect dough ball, waiting and ready to go. I'm definitely converted.
Next up - maybe banana bread, since I've never had yeast risen banana bread and I want to see what the difference is between it and quick banana bread, or maybe some sort of sweet rolls, now that I've experienced the joy of the dough cycle.