Cake, milk (soft course) bread, and 100% whole wheat bread

Bread machine :)

Dec - 13- 2011 Each person in our family got a new "toy" today :) Don got a new pair of shoes, I got a bread machine (Zoji mini), and Ian got a fisher-price table.

I thought we would have started enjoying these little "presents" at least till Christmas. But we ended up in the Children's hospital that night - because Ian had high fevers - 40 C. He head was extremely hot. It was almost hard to cuddle him. But anyway, when he finally cooled down (after taking Advil), he looked fine. So a viral infection again. I wondered if the virus looks like a little fire.

蛋糕一號 蘋果葡萄乾蛋糕
As to the bread maker :) its size was perfectly compact, just what I imagined. Since I didn't have bread flour, I used the machine to make a cake in the afternoon. It was just fine. Didn't put enough sugar ? Perhaps cakes are meant to be very sweet... Flour was old (because the cake wasn't fluffy. The loaf was kind of heavy and short) ?

麵包一號 Milk bread - soft course
The second one was baked while we were in the emergency room >"< Of course everything went wrong in a night like that. (Ian was fine when I put all ingredients into the machine though). So the milk soft course bread is a failure. short, heavy, with a giant hole inside its body (sorry)! possible attributes to the failure:

(1) yeast is old - but wasn't expired?
(2) all purpose flour is old - which is possible since it doesn't make good cakes too. But the recipe only calls 2 Tb...
(3) "bread and rolls" flour is wrong - I am not sure... perhaps.
(4) Didn't install knead securely. when I washed the pan, I found there is "a ring of" "bread?" stuck under the knead. and since there was a hole inside the bread - yeast might not get mixed into the dough.
(5) milk was cold - maybe
(6) yeast touched butter even though it wasn't melted.

麵包二號 100% whole wheat (regular) bread
success :) beautiful!
I measured all ingredients accurately this time. except used a little little bit less salt.
used new yeast (quick raise from a bottle). used whole wheat flour. made sure knead installed correctly. put butter away from yeast. Actually I saved some flour to be placed under yeast. I also used regular baking setting this time.

I am so glad that it looks perfect. not so thick or hard crust, and ok soft inside. I am especially happy because it wasn't salty - perfect for my baby. :)