Baking my first bread in my new Tefal bread maker

Dear Diary, 

I’ve tried out my new Tefal Pain et Tresors Maison bread maker machine with the recommended French bread recipe, let me present to you how it turned out…

But first, let’s study the user manual 

Before the first use of my brand new Tefal bread maker, I thoroughly studied the user manual. Since the printed one is missing some letters in the Hungarian version, I decided to stick with the online one, it’s easier anyway. 

⚠️ It warns us that

A slight odour and smoke may be given off when the appliance is first used.

I hope the kitchen will survive🌋. I’ve read somewhere not to put the machine near water to protect it from splashes, and putting near the hob and oven should also be avoided, but I couldn’t fulfil the latter criteria as I do not have this much space in my kitchen (well, at least I have an earthed electrical power outlet ✌️, safety first).

There is a Practical advice section that could be quite useful:

For example:

All ingredients used must be at room temperature … Bread preparation is very sensitive to temperature and humidity conditions. During hot weather, it is recommended to use cooler liquids than usual. Likewise, during cold weather, it may be necessary to warm the water or milk (never exceed 35°C).

👀 I was a little bit confused by the fact that, according to the recommendation, the total temperature of the kitchen, flour and water should be 60°C. How should I ensure this?! 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️ Ookay, whatever. I have no idea, so I think I’ll just simply slip over this particular piece of information.

Regarding the order of the ingredients, it’s worth noting, that:

First the liquids, and then the solids … General order to follow: Liquids (softened butter, oil, eggs, water, milk) – Salt – Sugar – First half of the flour – Powdered milk – Specific solid ingredients – Second half of the flour –Yeast (if not in the dispenser)

👍🏻yeah, this I can do.

The yeast must not come into contact with the liquids or with the salt. Too much yeast weakens the dough structure, which will rise a lot and will subsequently sag during cooking.

Further useful bits of advice from the manual are to avoid opening the lid during use; and wait for at least 1 hour between two programmes to allow the machine to cool down.

It’s also good to know that

When turning out your bread, the kneading paddle may remain stuck inside it. In this case, use the hook to gently remove it. To do so, insert the hook in the kneading paddle’s shaft, and then lift to remove it.

There is a detailed Information on the Ingredients section, but let’s leave that for later, when I have more experience with the machine.

Preparing the ingredients

The user manual gives the following French bread recipe:

• 365 ml water
• 2 tsp salt
• 620 g bread flour (T55)
• 1.5 tsp yeast

I measured everything as said in the recipe, put every ingredient except the yeast into the bowl (after inserting the kneading blade, do not forget!) in the above-mentioned order, the yeast into the special dispenser. I set the bread weight to 1000 g, and the crust colour to medium, chose programme 9, and started the bread maker. The programme time is said to be 3h 10min.

Game on, let’s see what this Tefal Pain et Tresors Maison is capable of doing.

Here comes my very first bread 🍞 baked in my Tefal bread maker 

The kitchen has survived ✌️, the Tefal Pain et Tresors Maison gives out almost no sound at all at the beginning, then there are a few kneading cycles that make some noise but it is not disturbing at all. Some steam came out during the first bake but not too much.

REALLY all I had to do was to put the ingredients in the bowl (it took me no more than 5 minutes, and this is just the beginning), push the button, then take out the freshly baked, homemade crispy bread 3 hours later. Zero kitchen skills are required, let alone bread-baking skills. Anybody can do it, it’s super easy. Simply amazing.

It is recommended to let the baked bread rest for one hour to cool down before cutting it, but of course, we couldn’t wait for 10 minutes. This first bread turned out very tasty, properly baked on the inside as well, the crust being crispy, brown enough but not burnt. No leftover dough in the bowl, it kneaded the dough nicely and evenly.

The only difficulty I had was getting the bread out of the bowl, since the kneading blade is baked inside, it had to be shaken hard several times until it came out. So you have to work a little bit for it if you want to eat it.

The bread turned out so well that I think I can bake the next one tomorrow (and I started with the 1000 g version)!  😋

The turquoise bread knife

I managed to cut the first bread only at the cost of a lot of crumbs, so I came to the conclusion that if I’m going to bake this much bread from now on (that is, not me, but the Tefal Pain et Tresors Maison bread maker), I would need a proper bread knife as well.

At the store, I incidentally found a knife set on sale (hooray 🥳), so not one, but five new knives came home with me right away (yes, my husband was very happy about it, but I still think it just fits in the drawer).

Inspecting it closer at home, I saw the beautiful turquoise color (one of my favorites) of the bread knife, so I like it even more. As it usually happens with us, no matter how careful we are, someone (or everyone in line) will soon cut their finger with the new knives. I mean, this one cuts well too. Bread and other things as well. 🤷🏻‍♀️

It exceeded my expectations, I am very satisfied with the first bake. There are many more to come, I am absolutely sure about it.

XOXO from my kitchen 🙃