Have seen and heard a lot of yays and nays regarding baking bread, any kind,
in a microwave.

Has anyone successfully done this in a regular microwave? I have heard of
the ones which supposedly work like a bread machine, but how about just a
plain ordinary micro?

I know it won't have the same characteristics and look, but would like to
hear from anyone who has done it successfully, preferably using sourdough.

I have baked English muffin bread in a micro very successfully and will be
glad to share the method for doing so. However it uses commercial yeast, not
sourdough.

AB

I sometimes heat my dough a bit on the defrost setting, to get it
quickly to around 30 centigrade, usually early in the morning.
Does not damage the yeast
FWIW
As to baking .... dunno. I like a crust.

On Thu, 04 Dec 2003 14:20:30 GMT, "ab" > wrote:

>Have seen and heard a lot of yays and nays regarding baking bread, any kind,
>in a microwave.
>
>Has anyone successfully done this in a regular microwave? I have heard of
>the ones which supposedly work like a bread machine, but how about just a
>plain ordinary micro?
>
>I know it won't have the same characteristics and look, but would like to
>hear from anyone who has done it successfully, preferably using sourdough.
>
>I have baked English muffin bread in a micro very successfully and will be
>glad to share the method for doing so. However it uses commercial yeast, not
>sourdough.
>
>AB
>

"amateur" <amateur@home> wrote in message
...
> I sometimes heat my dough a bit on the defrost setting, to get it
> quickly to around 30 centigrade, usually early in the morning.
>
> On Thu, 04 Dec 2003 14:20:30 GMT, "ab" > wrote:
>
> >Have seen and heard a lot of yays and nays regarding baking bread, any
kind,
> >in a microwave.
> >Has anyone successfully done this in a regular microwave? I have heard of
> >the ones which supposedly work like a bread machine, but how about just a
> >plain ordinary micro?


Finally it has arrived.
The order of the Samsung CE-1153FS microwave oven I placed end of last
November finally was carried out!
I introduced this product in an old thread ... in November last year, and I
promised to comment on its true capabilities.

Well, something nice, something bad and something surprising.

The microwave oven is combined : microwaves and/or grill and/or normal
electric oven.
It is provided with a couple of interesting programs : yogurt and
"fermentation".
I must admit that I bought it essentially because of these.
I immediately started with the "fermentation" program.
I placed a dough in a cup and covered it with plastic foil.
I also placed my digital thermometer inside the oven to check the effective
temperature of the program.
The first bad thing. I noticed is that the fermentation program lasts only
20, 25 or 30 minutes and that the scheduled temperature is 40 C...
....mmmh
I nevertheless continued, I tried to program several batches of 20 minutes
one after another... but no possibility.
After five minutes I checked the temperature...
Surprising effect.
The screen of the digital thermometer was completely full of unreadable
segments..
I've lost it forever. Damaged. Unusable.
To my surprise, this program was not only carried out through the normal
electric heating but also through a microwave heating component!
I read more carefully the manual: this program is oriented to raise doughs
made with yeast and not to sourdough fermentations which require lower
temperatures and longer time!

The jogurt program is more interesting because it is programmable up to 12
hours.
The bad thing is that the lowest temperature is always 40 C which is still
too high!
(I managed to measure the effective temperature with an old style
thermometer, but it was however high: 38 !)
Another unpleasant thing is that during the working time of the yogurt
program, the internal light is kept on as well as the fan, so it is very
noisy and consumes a lot of energy comparing to my basic yogurt machine.

Further nice things unfortunately do not affect this group...
like the security for children (a combination of keys block the device, like
a mobile);
the easy cleaning (you put water in a special cup which produces steam to
easily clean the oven afterwards);
the digital programming of the oven temperatures which are reached in less
than 5 minutes (and kept at your disposal for 10 minutes, then if you do not
use the oven it switches off);
nice accessories for cooking with steam.

Conclusion
This is the first microwave oven which tries to condensate in a single
device many separate appliances.
I however bet that it is possible to reprogram this oven without changing no
basic components to obtain something much nearer to the oven of my dreams.
And I also bet that it would be possible to send some requirements to the
project engineers to proceed in the appropriate direction of handling all
the sourdough phases.


bye to all
Luke Skywalker


P.S.
....well as a microwave oven ... it works well, no problem with that!