About two months ago, my bread maker died. I’m not surprised. The poor motor couldn’t handle the heavy duty bread dough I was asking it to knead for me (notice I wasn’t going to knead it!). Since then, we’ve been making do with store-bought bread but it just isn’t the same. I know Wonder Bread was supposed to be a Really Big Deal because the bread was light and fluffy but we prefer whole wheat bread that has substance and is quite dense.
Today’s “Friday Find” truly IS a Friday find because I bought it this very morning at an estate/yard sale.
The Double H Breadmaster
The box for this had been half-kicked under a table and someone had dumped several thermoses on top of it (some people are so disrespectful when they go to these things–they just paw and toss stuff around). At first, I thought it was a pressure cooker and I almost didn’t look further because I already have one. Fortunately, the directions were within view so I took a look and just about died with excitement. Who ever heard of a hand-cranked bread machine??? And it is in near-mint condition! In its original box! But I walked away and looked at other stuff.
When My Honey and I were talking to one of the sons of the woman whose estate was for sale, we started talking about bread. He mentioned that his mother had six children and made a lot of bread. Okay, he had me right then and there. I knew I had to honor this woman by buying the gizmo that was still out in the yard. The son and I went out and inspected it and I told him he had a sale.
Essentially, it has a hook like you’d attach to a KitchenAid for kneading dough. Only it uses man-power instead of horsepower. According to the directions, you turn the crank for five minutes, let the dough rise, crank it some more and then divide it into fourths for the second rise and baking.
I looked online to see if I could find anything about The Breadmaster Corporation (Home of the Double HH Breadmaster) but I couldn’t find anything at all about it. If you know about it, please let me know!
At least with this bread machine, I know the motor won’t give out on me again!
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Amy Dacyczcyn (I think I’ve just misspelled her name) of Tightwad Gazette fame talks about these very items in her Tightwad Gazette book. She calls them “Bread Buckets”. I actually have one, and found that for my particular model you have to make a lot of bread at one time for it to work well. Mine was a thrift store purchase (probably a different company) and doesn’t look quite as nice as yours.
Mama, I was noticing that the instructions are for four loaves of bread. Since we use one 1-pound loaf of bread a week, I guess the rest will go into the freezer and I’ll only bake bread once per month. We’ll see how it goes!
Twitter: GoRetroPam
Such a cool find! Have you tried it yet? I’m curious to know how the bread comes up. Hope you had a nice weekend. I need to get a few posts up this week…
Twitter: GoRetroPam
Whoops, meant to say I’m curious to know how the bread came out.
Pam, I haven’t tried it yet. I’m playing “nurse” and “taxi driver” for a sick relative for the next week so I don’t get to play with my new toy just yet.
I have found out, though that Lehman’s Hardware (cater to the Amish and Mennonite community) used to carry one like it and may start carrying it again.