The Battle of the Breadmakers

What a morning! On Friday I made a loaf using the old Kenwood mixer that my mum gave me after she retired it and I know it's over 25 years old. I have become increasingly dissatisfied with my little Breville bread-maker as the mixing paddle kept getting gummed on to the spindle and had to be prised off, often with the loss of a finger nail.

I decided to give it a couple of goes with the Kenwood before I recycled the Breville and the first loaf was lots better than expected. This morning I set the Kenwood off again making dough while I stood at the sink scrubbing the grill rack. I hadn't been at the sink for more than two minutes before there was the most awful Crash! Tinkle! Clatter! And I nearly jumped out of my skin. The cat managed to leap from his kitchen chair out into the back garden, and sanctuary, without touching the ground, the noise was so horrendous.

The Kenwood had been happily churning the dough around, but in doing so, had been wobbling all over the kitchen work-surface and had tipped off the edge, taking the Breville breadmaker with it and a few other bits and bobs. The Kenwood was totally undamaged, had landed almost upright and wasn't even scratched, though it is a hefty lump of kitchen engineering in steel. Sadly, the Breville didn't fare so well. Even though it landed after the Kenwood and didn't have the big metal beast land on top of it, the lid shattered, rendering it useless unless for parts.

Luckily, I had already decided that making bread in the Kenwood, a bit more manually than before, was much the better option, so it's not a total tragedy, though it is a shame I can't pass the Breville on to anyone, as I know bread-makers are hugely popular on freecycle.

Goodness, it certainly woke me up! I think the poor old cat is still having palpitations, so I shall probably go and calm him with a bit of tuna or some home made butter. Tom, my cat, has become my biggest butter fan; every morning he sits up as soon as breakfast is on the table and today turned his nose up at a chunk of best back bacon in favour of licking a lump of butter off my finger. I can live with the praise and I do love my old cat for being such a discerning beastie!

Ah well, as my dough survived the collision, I had better go and knock it out before putting in the super-duper new loaf tin that arrived this morning as a gift from Kim. He treated me to a 2lb. heavy duty loaf tin by Kaiser and again, it's industrial quality kitchenware. What a lovely present and it's just what I wanted!