The Bread Maker and homemade bread

I gave in. I am now a proud owner of a Bread Maker. I have always wanted to bake bread at home but those bread recipes which require endless kneading are a little intimidating. But wait! now all I need to do is measure the ingredients and add them to my bread maker and in 3-4 hours I'd be feasting on warm bread. Yum!

My first attempt was making a wheat bread. It tasted great. I even liked it toasted the next day. My second attempt was making a braided bread with orange zest and anise seeds. This one tasted even better! The house smells heavenly (sweet freshly baked bakery bread smell). The braided bread turned out humongous (see pic). I wish the recipe (taken from the bread maker manual) mentioned how big the braided bread would be!!

I would like believe homemade bread is healthier (without all those preservatives, additives and colors). But it does get stale within a day or two. I need to figure out ways to keep it fresh longer.

The Wheat bread

The Humongous Braided Bread