peter wrote:
>> I know that you have already thought of this but, why not make a full
>> loaf, on the dough cycle, shape into smaller loaf and put into small bread
>> pans, rise, bake and when cooled, freeze the extra ones for later.
>
> Because I want to taste the loaf, make adjustment to the ingredients, then
> make an improved loaf.
>
>
I was a hand-made bread bigot until a friend with trusted gourmet
instincts pointed out that you could wake up to the smell of fresh bread
without having worked during the night. So one birthday the GF gave me
a Breadman Ultimate (enlightened self-interest on her part; she too got
to eat the bread) which is now an indispensable accessory. It has a 1#
loaf setting, and on Basic cycle the difference seems to be 5 minutes
less duration than 1.5#. This is probably in the bake time. With a
vertical pan (not Breadman) and programmable cycles, you can probably
knock the loaf size down a bit more.

One thing I have learned with the machine is that working by weight
rather than volume, particularly for the flour, consistently yields
superior results. Yeah, the instructions usually say to check the dough
during first kneading and adjust moisture content, but that detracts
from the "load-and-forget" beauty. Heck, just convert to baker's
percentages and then you can scale that little test loaf up to whatever
you want.