Last fall, I made Christine Ferber's Grandmother's Pear jam with vanilla and nuts (pine nuts and walnuts). It was so elegant, lovely and tasted sublime. Until 2 months later when to my horror, the top third of the jars had started to blacken. I am almost certain that they were still good but who would eat black pears? I think what happened was I didn't peel the walnuts properly and they black dye discoloured the whole lot. If anyone has any other ideas about what might have gone wrong, I'd love to hear them. From that experience, and from reading here, I've completely rethought the idea of putting nuts into any jam. If I ever make it again, I'll do one small batch for my g/f who loves it without walnuts and not can it but just tell her to refrigerate and eat soon. Irene

lyfia - #1. Along with your new Zo, I'd also suggest a copy of the book, "Bread Machines For Dummies" by Glenna Vance and Tom Lacalamita. When I give bread machine classes I give this book to my students. It will give you a wealth of basic and advanced information, as well as being filled with lots of great recipes. I've never had a recipe fail out of this book. #2. Read the manual that comes with your machine and use some of the recipes in it. These recipes are designed for this bread machine and tend to be successful for newbies. #3. When converting your traditional recipes, you need to be careful how much flour there is in the recipe. The Zo V-20 and X-20 have a 5-cup flour capacity if you are going to bake in it. If you are mixing dough in it, you can use more flour than that. #4. ALWAYS check the condition of the dough during the first 5-minutes (or so) of kneading and adjust it accordingly. Don't be afraid to raise the lid and check the dough during the mixing/kneading stage. The dough should be formed into a very soft, sticky ball. If the dough is sticking to the sides or the bottom of the pan, you need to add more flour (1-2 T. at a time). If the dough is crumbly and not forming a ball, you need to add warm water. It is better to err on the side of a wet dough than a hard stiff dough. #5. If you choose to make a small 1# loaf of bread, I'd suggest you NOT bake it in the bread machine. The pan is designed to bake twice that amount and a 1# loaf is going to be really wide and not very high if baked in the machine. Choose 1.5 or 2 pound loaves if you bake in the machine. I generally make a 2#+ amount of dough and make it into two loaves. Or I'll make one loaf and use the remaining dough for 6 hot dog or 6 hamburger buns, 6 sticky pecan rolls, or an 8" pan of dinner rolls - all from one recipe of dough. #6. When baking outside the bread machine, I scale the dough (weigh it on a kitchen scale) to make sure I place it in the correct size bread pan, or if I need to divide the dough into two loaves they will weigh the same amount, raise and bake in the same amount of time. Failed bread recipes is often from using the wrong size pan for the amount of dough. I also scale the dough for dinner rolls, burger and hot dog buns so they are the same size and will raise and bake in the same amount of time. Jumbo size pan - 10x4-1/2" - 4-5 c. flour = 2+ pounds of dough Quick bread pan - 9x5" - 4 c. flour = 2# Standard bread pan - 8-1/2x4-1/2" - 3 c. flour - 1-1/2 # Medium pan - 7-1/2x3-1/3" - 2-1/2 c. flour = 1# Small pan - 5-3/4x3-3/4" - 1-1/2 c. flour = 8-ounces #7. If you use the quick cycle on your bread machine, you will need to use a fast-acting brand of yeast (SAF-Instant, Quick-Rise, Rapid Rise, or Bread Machine Yeast). Active Dry Yeast will not work properly in the quick cycle. I keep two kinds of yeast on hand to accommodate bread machine recipes - SAF-Instant and Active Dry Yeast. If I use the fast-acting SAF-Instant in a recipe that calls for Active Dry Yeast, I reduce it by 25%. The recipes in the ZO manual will call for one amount if using a fast-rising yeast, and another amount if using active dry yeast. Many bread machine cookbooks will have the different amounts for each type of yeast. #8. The bread machine is great for a baking marathon. I fill the pan and set the machine to "quick dough". As soon as the dough has finished kneading I remove the dough from the pan and place it in a dough-rising bucket. Load the pan with the next recipe and do the same thing. I can quickly make 3 or 4 recipes using this method. The trick is using the bread machine for mixing and kneading ONLY, but NOT for the rising. If you pre-measure everything, you can have a recipe kneaded every 20 to 25-minutes, or so. #9. Add "chunky" stuff (raisins, nuts, dry multi-grain cereal blends, etc.), at the "add-in" beep, otherwise the rough edges will cut the gluten strands of the dough and you'll have a short, squatty loaf. If you add raisins before the add-in beep, they will be pulverized during the kneading and blended into the bread. #10. Have fun!!! Bread is very forgiving, but also very humbling, so expect a few failures and a bit of a learning curve to get the hang of using a bread machine. -Grainlady

Hey there to you too Chase, and what a nice Christmas suprise to run into you here :) Thank you all so very much for your advice. I have never worked beside someone who baked bread from hand so I never know exactly how to knead and what the bread should look or feel like, which is why I did love my bread machine for when I wanted to make homemade bread - it tended to turn out pretty well out of the bread machine before baking. I'm sure I will love my kitchen Aid for bread too, when I get the hang of it, as much as I love it for everything else. I'm not much of a kitchen gadget person but I do love my Kitchen Aid machine. I have carefully read all the advice - I wouldnt' be surprised to find that I might overknead the bread with the dough hook and I also didn't proof the yeast, because the dough always doubled I figured it was ok? Will carefully follow all the advice - some of it I have never heard of before - when I do a trial run on the honey buttermilk dinner rolls today. Thank you so VERY much for all the advice! A merry Christmas to you all :)

Ugh, no wonder it was in the back of the shed! I'm so lazy, my enthusiasm for all of that might not be there. Since I already have the romertopf for bread, I might put this one in with the "donate to Goodwill" pile. Or I could try it a couple of times with greased parchment paper. Thanks for the tips though!! Very helpful! I appreciate very much that you took time to answer!