>I've been getting fabulous results from my bread machine and
>can't live long enough to use all the recipes I've collected. The
>only problem is slicing the bread! Don't tell me to wait until it
>cools -- i'm doing that. I bought one of those knives with the
>guide thingie on it, but it's difficult to make it stay vertically
>straight. Has anyone else had trouble slicing their bread?
>Any helpful suggestions?
I hope this doesn't sound condescending; its not meant to be
that way.
What you need is practice; repeated practice. Just think if you
were learning to play tennis or golf. Would you really expect to
be a good player your first few times around?
Slicing bread seems like it should be so simple, but most people
have problems with it and uneven slices are the result. I've watched
my kids grow up playing sport after sport, frustrated that they aren't
good players out of the box. After they practice, they're good, if not
great.
I would recommend you go to the day-old bread store in your
area and buy $10 or $20 worth of unsliced bread. Thats a lot! Then,
spend a morning or two just slicing,slicing, slicing. Thin, thick,
medium, until you start getting some certainty. You can always turn
the sliced bread into bread crumbs for future cooking projects (put
them through a food processor and then dry them on cookie sheets
at 200 F. for a couple of hours until they are dry, but not brown. These
keep for months once dried & cooled.) If you don't want bread crumbs,
think bird food.
Forget the knives with guides. If your slicing skills aren't good, you'll
still get lousy slices. Just like training wheels on a kid's bicycle, at
some point the training wheels need to come off. When do they come
off? When you've practiced enough. Your first few tries may still be
wobbly, but you will get better as you practice!