Thanks for those links! Ideally, cooking is done with renewable energy. But in terms of efficiency I am not sure a bread maker or a home oven is more energy intensive since ovens are generally large and bread makers are small. Would be interesting to see the calculations. The book Cool Cuisine might have data on this. Does anybody know?

Hi Jason,

Thanks for this article and your many others.

re: Kneading. Here's something you may have seen.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/2007-12-01/Easy-No-Knead-Dutch-...

I did make that once and it was fantastic. However, I made it on my hardwood stove top and it didn't cook as evenly as it would have in an oven. I have a hard time justifying firing up my gas oven for one loaf of bread so I haven't done it again. The crust is indeed perfect.