A Easy Path To Getting Bread...

This title could go many ways but I'm taking the subject to bread makers.  Add the ingredients, it mixes, it kneads, it rests, kneads and rises and bakes.  Now the question is...which one?

I come from a long line of bread makers.  I love to work the dough, I love the feel of it, the smell as it rises, the smell when it bakes.  I love every part of it except the time it takes to do it.

I also love the fact Almanzo Wilder built a bread ledge for Laura Ingalls Wilder to over look the apple orchard while she made bread in their tiny house is Mansfield Missouri.  They moved here in 1894 with their daughter, Rose Wilder.  Both mom and daughter became authors...and they knew how to make bread.  Their house is a museum in Mansfield.  If you are familiar with Little House On The Prairie you may be excited that Pa's fiddle still resides in this museum.

When I was younger and exuberant about home making, I made a lot of yeast bread.  It was just part of what I did.  I have a very old recipe I use of Mom's that is older than me.  Sixty hour weeks at a paying job, parenting, house keeping and a few other things disrupted my bread making career but on these cool fall days I long for the smell again, the texture of homemade bread.

Mom's recipe comes for The Modern Family Cook Book by Meta Given.  This was first printed in 1942.  The one we have is a second printing in 1943 with a war time supplement in the back.  It has 941 pages with a few missing from the silverfish invasion before I was born.

Mom knew my love of bread making and shared a favorite recipe of hers.  I began mass production it was such a hit with family members that had no time to make bread.

Tonight I turn to page 332 and find it marked with a bobby pin.  My favorite bread of all time Schnecken!

When I decided to make this after the family sampled a few batches, Marcy would volunteer to babysit and a friend volunteered to help.  It was a day long operation.  I had dish pans full of yeast bread rising, dough punched down waiting for their second rising and rolls beginning to take shape.  I believe this recipe is the origin of the wonderful Sticky Bun.  Pecans, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, oh, the flavors in this roll!

One day my friend and I made 12 dozen rolls.  My father-in-law would take them in his lunch box on the railroad.  His wife would wrap each roll, which were huge, in aluminum foil and freeze them.  By lunch time, the roll was thawed and as warm as just out of the oven.  We all loved them and I baked many times sharing with family and friends who had no time to bake.  When Schnecken Rolls were mentioned, we had more company than normal.  The word was out.

I guess I said all that to say this:  What is the best bread machine?  I have googled, binged, and searched for hours (I had time to make a batch!) and compared. I don't know any more than I did.  I want a machine that can mix and cook a variety of breads but also one that allows me to remove the dough before it cooks so I can make Schnecken once again.  Quicker, easier.  Since I am retired I have the time...right!

Help!  I need advice on which machine would fit my needs without breaking the bank.  I'll give you my wonderful Schnecken  recipe and you can make bake them as three generations of this family has done.