It seems that they don’t make things like they used to.  I inherited my mum’s Kenwood mixer and it’s been doing wonderful service and I don’t hold it responsible at all for any of my baking disasters.

That’s more than can be said for my breadmaker.  It is just a few years old and has finally broken down with little hope of a repair as the part I need is now “obsolete” which is code for the manufacturers being too lazy to keep making spare parts for otherwise perfectly workable machines.

I set it up the other day to bake the usual loaf when all of a sudden water was coming out of the bottom of the pan with all the ingredients in.  It seems the spindle that holds the paddle in place has broken and despite my best efforts I can’t seem to find a way of fixing it.  Replacing the whole pan seemed like the necessary thing. But not a chance of that.

Now I’m left with a high end breadmaker with all it’s fancy electronics and failed engineering.  More importantly how am I going to make my bread and pizza dough.  Not to mention the bagels and other fancies that I’ve never yet made but always intended to.

They just don’t make things like they used to.

Good job I’ve still got my trusty Kenwood.  Usually I made good use of these attachments for stirring and whisking.  But that wasn’t going to cut the mustard.  Something a little more industrial was needed.

And so I dug out from the back of the cupboard the special dough arm.  Something I’ve never used but never thrown away.

But with a crumbling breadmaker and a need to bake bread I thought I’d experiment and see if my trusty Kenwood would come up trumps.  Just look at the old workhorse doing it’s stuff.  Turning flour, yeast, salt, sugar and water into glossy dough in less and 5 minutes.

Then I had to leave the dough to work it’s magic. The recipe calls for a warm place.  Since we don’t have an airing cupboard it took pride of place under a tea towel on the window seat to bask in the winter sun.  And as if by some chemical reaction between the yeast, sugar and water.  It doubled in size into a real bread dough.

After a few seconds whizz with the Kenwood to knock the dough back it was time to plonk in the bread pan for it’s final tea towel raising moment.

I couldn’t quite understand why the recipe calls for lightly oiled cling film.  After leaving the dough to do it’s thing I now understand.  Without the oil it’s hard to get the film off and you end up with something lumpy like this!

I thought it was rather artistic and promptly bunged it in the oven.  I set off to do some construction work outside on the chicken pen and almost forgot about the bread baking.  Let’s just say I ended up with a dark golden brown.

It was as good, if not better, than the breadmaker bread in terms of taste.  I was pleased with my first attempt.  With a bit more practice and more attention on the time rather than the chicken fencing it will be perfect next time.

I’ve not given up the hope that I’ll find someone who has stockpiled replacement buckets for a Russell Hobbs Breadmaker Pro (10008 model number) and I can get it operational again.  In the meantime, the Kenwood dough arm will be put to the test as Friday night is gourmet pizza night here at Domestic Executive HQ.  I hope it doesn’t let me down.  After almost 30 years of service can’t see why it would.  But knowing my luck this week……..