Basic High-Altitude French Bread for Welbilt Breadmaker
"I used to live near sea level, where I had wonderful success with breadmaker breads.
Back then, I'd just estimate the amount of yeast, salt, and sugar, and I'd toss in all sorts of extra ingredients. Once even a bread made with yellow cake mix and some leftover spinach.
However, after moving to a mile-high altitude, I had to stop casually adding ingredients. In fact, I couldn't even turn out a decent loaf of white bread.
I was about to donate my breadmaker away, when I came across tips for high-altitude baking on the internet. I stayed up late one night reading. Then I started experimenting.
My breadmaker is the Welbilt Model #ABM-100. [That's the breadmaker that's shaped like R2D2.]
I played around with ingredient amounts until I found a combination that uses regular flour at high-altitude.
Now, I've never tried this at OTHER high altitudes ... maybe what works in my altitude/temperature/humidity will fail dismally in another part of the world. And I don't know what would happen if you choose to use bread flour.
Here's the basic French bread that works for me.
But I haven't dared to add spinach to it."
- Ready In:
- 4hrs 10mins
- Ingredients:
- 6
- Yields:
-
12 slices
ingredients
directions
- Add ingredients to breadmaker in order listed.
- Select French bread setting.
- Push start.
- Four hours later, slice and eat.
- This is best when freshly-sliced; it doesn't seem to keep particularly well. But, if you have teenagers, the question of needing to keep leftovers is irrelevant anyway.
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Reviews
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I live at about 8,500 ft above sea level. I have had a terrible time baking bread at this altitude. This recipe worked great. I did not use my bread machine, but kneaded it for about 5-10 minutes and then allowed it to rise for 40 the first time, punched it down and let it rise another 20 minutes. Then I shaped it and let it rise another 20 minutes. Then, I baked it at 375 for 20 minutes. Perfect bread! -
Used this at 5300ft, turned out pretty nicely. Next time, I think I'll cut the salt back to 1 tsp, and up the bread size setting from 1 lb to 1-1/2 lb. Otherwise excellent -
So this recipe calls for almost equal amounts of water and flour by weight. I always follow a new recipe exactly the first time I try to make it and was not surprised to see dough soup in the bread machine pan. It was the consistency of sourdough starter and baked into a loaf that looked, felt, and tasted like a brick. 6k feet. -
Successfully made my first bread in Colorado (5300 ft) in bread machine exactly followed this recipe. Very tasty, no leftover ...my picky eaters family loved it. THANK YOU. I was using all purposed flour the first time. Made it second time using bread flour, it was more fluffy but the top collapsed, still tasted delicious just not as pretty. I do like the fluffy texture, wonder how to avoid top collapsed? Again, thank you for the recipe... I gave up baking many years ago after I moved here from sea level. -
I live at 7500 ft. It still collapsed with the amount of yeast listed. I had to reduce the yeast to 1/2 tsp for it to not collapse. The top crust was still very delicate though, so I may experiment with even less yeast. The taste was really good! It’s our favorite so far!
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Tweaks
-
I used the recipe as is - no changes.
