Howdy! While I absolutely love my apartment, the one thing I don’t like is the kitchen. It’s pretty small and counter space is incredibly limited. Even more so by the fact that we have several countertop appliances taking up room like our air fryer, ice machine, toaster, and Keurig. As you can imagine, this makes cooking really difficult and it’s frustrating because I love to cook so much! With cooking being a struggle, I rarely even think about baking and that is a shame because my mom and sister are absolutely excellent bakers.

My sister makes a mean sweet treat and I am still daydreaming about a blueberry cheesecake she made several years back. My mom is a genius in general and in terms of baking bread and I have the fondest memories of helping her knead the dough when I was little. I always fancied trying to bake bread myself but it would be basically impossible at chez moi. The only table we have is my work desk and it’s covered in all of my random odds and ends and I don’t think kneading the dough on the floor is a good look lol.

As it just so happens, I might be able to make bread yet. Just not in the way I would want to. I recently acquired a bread machine that a friend had and never used. I figured it couldn’t hurt to at least give it a shot and it’s super cute to boot:

As the daughter of a mom who always poo pooed a bread machine, I felt slightly guilty for taking my friend up on the offer. In fact, when I called my mom to tell her about my newest countertop addition, I prefaced it by saying “don’t be mad” lol! Of course she wasn’t mad in the slightest and encouraged me to give it a go. She also told me a lot of bread recipes she has that I love have an adjoining bread machine recipe for me to use. 😀

Although this bread machine won’t give me the same “kneaded with love” (My mom’s official slogan) effect, it will still provide one of the best things about baking bread… How freaking amazing it smells as it’s baking!! I promised the friend who gave me their bread machine that the first loaf I bake will be for them. The next one I plan on making will be used for grilled cheese sandwiches paired with tomato soup for my mom and I to share. I know it won’t be as good as my mom’s but I’m excited to try something new!

During my next trip to the grocery store, I will be buying all the goods for my first time baking bread with the machine method. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Do you have any pro tips for bread machine usage? What is your favorite bread machine recipe? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah