Re: Ah, human desire for convenience.
"Me mum did the whole knead-rise-punchdown-rise-bake thing to get lovely home-baked bread; I pop it in a bread machine."
A bread machine is what got me into baking bread. Mine broke, and I realized that the bread machine was actually saving me almost no time and effort whatsoever -- it only takes a few minutes to mix up a batch of dough, and the rest of the time spent is just waiting. So I started doing it all by hand, and still do. It takes me about 10 minutes longer to do it this way as opposed to the machine.
Bonus: the bread machine produces better bread than store-bought, but still not as good as hand-mixed. The amount of water you need for good bread varies according to environmental conditions and the particular batch of flour you're using, so for best results you need to actually feel the dough and adjust accordingly.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
