Thrift store gems

Captain's Log, Supplemental

I am a thrift store junkie. If gas weren’t so expensive, I’d be at Goodwill and Salvation Army every day. Or at least every week.

I’ve just unearthed one of my best finds—an old Sunset Family Circle recipe book for breads. These are all the old-fashioned recipes from the 50s and 60s.

I love this book. I’ve already made tons of things from it, most often the scones and the biscuit recipes (I substitute the biscuit recipe whenever a recipe calls for Bisquick).

Today, I was reading a book where the author talks about eating brioche bread, so I’d had a hankering for it all day. Then it occurred to me to check my Sunset book.

There’s a solid, old-fashioned brioche recipe in the book, but it’s a bit elaborate. So I modified it for my bread machine! Aren’t I smart?

It’s baking now. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

What about you? Any great thrift store finds that are worth their weight in gold?

Update: My breadmaker was burning! Actually, the dough rose too much and a few pieces fell over the edge of the bread “basket” of the maker and on to the heating element underneath, and the dough started burning when the element kicked into high heat for baking.

We smelled the burning and then I saw the smoke coming out of my breadmaker. I freaked out!

Once I opened it and looked inside, I could see what happened. So I took the bread “basket” thingy out and I have stuck it in my oven. Luckily, the bread had only just started to bake.

Let’s see if it turns out okay after having a bit of a “smoking.”

Update: The bread turned out rather well, if I do say so myself. There's a slight smokey flavor, but that also might be because the smoke is still in my nose.

The outside is nicely crispy, the inside soft. It's not as sweet as the brioche rolls I've eaten at bakeries, and I actually might add some sugar to it next time I make it.

Here is the recipe, but next time I will need to cut back on the proportions because the dough rose too much for my breadmaker:

Golden Brioche bread

1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup butter (the original recipe called for 3/4 cup)
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup water (the recipe called for warm water to proof the yeast, but I just added the water since I don't need to proof the yeast before adding it to the machine.)
4 eggs
4 cups flour
2 1/4 teaspoons bread machine yeast (the recipe called for one envelope active dry yeast. Hmm, I wonder if I added too much yeast?)

1. Scald milk in small saucepan. Remove from heat.

2. Add butter and melt it in the hot milk. This will also serve to cool the milk.

3. Add sugar, salt, and water. Mix.

4. I made sure the liquids were warm and not too hot, then I added it to the machine.

5. Beat eggs, add to machine.

6. Add flour

7. Add yeast.

I put the machine on the white bread or basic bread setting at dark crust setting, because my machine tends to have a very light crust when it's on the medium crust setting.

However, the recipe calls for only 50 minutes of baking at 400 degrees, and when I finished it in the oven, I baked it for only 40 minutes (it had baked a bit in the machine before the FIRE) and it was slightly overdone.

So next time, I think I will put the machine on a light baking setting and watch it carefully to make sure it doesn't get too brown.