Breadmaker

[Echilon]

I was talking to a friend today, and I want to get a breadmaker. The thought of making my own pizza dough and wholemeal loaves sounds great

I'm not sure which one to get though, is it worth spending more or is it just for bells and whistles? In Argos, they sell for between £25 and £100. Is the extra spend worth it?

[david coonce]

What? You're going to buy two hands and an oven?

[BarbaraY]

Are you new at bread making? Do you think you will be making it every day or two?

The things take up storage space so you have to have a place to store it or otherwise get it out of the way.

I was once offered one and refused because I prefer to get my hands on the dough.

Only you can decide for yourself. Try making some by hand first if you haven't done that. You wuill find it's really simple.

[ellencho]

I own a zojirushi breadmaker and I use it the most during the summer months for baking sandwich loaves since my oven tends to heat up my entire first floor. It's very convenient and I can customize my loaves to suit what I'm in the mood for and since it has a timer I can have my bread baked whenever I'm ready for them to be. It is also quite convenient for mixing tougher doughs that you might not want to mix in your stand mixer.

[toweringpine]

I love my Bread Maker ( Black & Decker ). I know I can make it myself and sometimes do but it sure is nice to get up in the morning and have fresh bread. Or to come home after a long day and have stew in the crock pot and a piping hot loaf in the bread maker. It doesn't heat up the house much but it sure puts out a lot of wonderful smell!! I may be off with my conversions but 25pounds seems rather inexpensive. I know they have come down in price but that seems extreme. When my mother bought her machine she said "The first loaf cost $300 and after that they are just about free."

[tino27]

I, too, started out on a breadmaker and if you are unfamiliar with making bread, then I think it is an easy and convenient way to start out learning the process. And I would agree with some of the other sentiments that having a fresh loaf of bread timed with morning rise or evening dinner can also be a bonus. That being said, my biggest gripe with the finished loaves is that they were often under or over proofed -- since bread dough is a living thing, each time it can be a little different. As I had a pretty early model, perhaps modern models will allow you to set the proofing times before the loaf is baked. Plus, you are also limited to one loaf at a time. If you use the oven, you can bake two or three loaves (good for the holidays).

I'm not trying to discourage you from using a breadmaker, but I eventually got frustrated enough with the limitations of mine to start making my bread with my hands and a stand mixer. Haven't looked back since.

[Jay Francis]

I notice that you are in the U.K. but, fingers crossed, the Breadman Ultimate, by I believe, Welbilt, will not disappoint you. I own three.

Years ago, I attended a breadmaking class in which the teacher, talking about bread machines gave instructions on how to make bread in one and then finished by saying, "Then, remove your loaf and throw it away because bread machines are rubbish." He was very wrong, but it was a year or so before I discovered this. We were visiting a friend in Kendal, Lake District, and woke up to wonderful bread every morning. I got her recipe and used it to great success. The trick is to weigh your ingredients.

So I bought a Breadman Ultimate, loved it, decided to upgrade to the Williams Sonoma one with a stainless steel exterior (simply for esthetics). So I had two. Then, I came across a Breadman Ultimate in a second hand store for $15 (retail price $99) so I had to get it and now I have three.

Mostly I use Mabel's recipe, or, the recipe for bread with oats, raisins and nuts on the back of the King Arthur bread flour bag. But, I have successfully used it to knead dough for specialty breads and pizza dough.

Here follows Mabel's recipe that got me started and some old notes to a friend from a few years back

310 ml water from the hot water tap

1 teaspoon Kosher salt if you have it or 3/4 teaspoon regular salt (salt should not come in contact with yeast, which is why the salt is added to the water, and the yeast is added on top of the flour later on)

1 1/2 tablespoon nonfat dry milk powder ( to help the bread last longer)

15 grams of butter (to help with the rising and to add moisure)

1 tablespoon sugar (to help with the rising)

*The hot water is to quickly dissolve the dry ingredients and to soften the butter

To the liquid, poured on top, not mixed in add:

425 grams bread flour

Make a small well in the center of the flour and add:

1 teaspoon Red Star Active Dry Yeast, Fleischmann's Rapidrise Yeast, or SAF Perfectrise Yeast.

Don't be tempted to add more than 1 teaspoon.

Notes:

Yeast is a very interesting product. If it sits in the grocery store too long, or gets hot sitting in the store room, it can be ruined. So, I have always bought my yeast at the same store in the small packets. However, Irene picked up a jar of Red Star for me and I have used it successfully, keeping it in the refrigerator for several months now. The new rapidrise yeasts are different variation on yeast, which allows the yeast to be bound to a molasses in smaller crystal structures at lower temperature, so less yeast dies during the manufacturing. The reason it is called rapidrise is because more live yeast is available in a teaspoon, so it feeds and grows quicker than traditional yeast. Because of the extra yeast, you can add it dry to most recipes. That is, if the grocery store didn't kill it by improperly storing it.

I have never had success with the fresh yeast which I bought at the grocery stores and I now only use rapidrise types of dry yeast.

Why metric measures? More accurate than saying "three or four cups of flour".

Also, there is a certain moisture that you want to your dough, if the dough is too wet, too much carbon dioxide will escape and the bread will be flat, if the dough is too dry, the proteins in gluten will not develop properly. It should be tacky to the touch. Of course if you are making ciabatta or other non sandwich breads, they may be much wetter.

But, that is the fun of making bread, figuring out how everything works.

Once you master the simplest sandwich bread, you'll probably just use the machine for mixing dough and then baking the bread in the oven.

Jay

[Baggy]

Do it!!!

You’ll never go back to supermarket bread again.

I have a model that is programmable and mix all of my small batch doughs in it (Russell Hobbs Breadman Ultimate, although it may be discontinued) – it’s far more efficient (in a gentler way) than a kitchen mixer and can produce everything from a standard bake-in-the-breadmaker sandwich loaf (fully automatic) to sourdough rye breads and French baguettes (using the machine only for mixing the dough).

Compared with kneading by hand, the breads have better volume, more taste and go stale less quickly.

If you are looking for a breadmaker, get one that has an oblong tin, not a cheaper square tin (and I’m not sure there is any need for a model with two mixing paddles, especially as they leave two big holes in the bottom of the loaf).

I would fully endorse the suggestion that you weigh your ingredients – small variations make a big difference to the quality of the finished loaf. And assuming you are using dried yeast, I would suggest you use Doves Farm Quick yeast or Tesco’s version – these two brands have the highest activity and are most suitable for the breadmaker (Sainsbury’s, Allinson’s & Hovis all have lower activity).

I bake a standard wholemeal loaf around three times a week and have found that Waitrose wholemeal flour is the best of the supermarket brands (Sainsbury’s has been the least reliable for me). A friend suggested today that Waitrose Extra Strong Canadian wholemeal works really well if you’re going to make a 100% wholemeal loaf. Carr’s wholemeal flour is more rustic (and more flavourful), but gives less volume.

Tesco strong white flour is fine for adding to not-100% wholemeal loaves, although you might want to look around for suitable flour for a white loaf (I find the Tesco flour leads to a slightly metallic-tasting bread).

Once you get used to the timing, I spend 5 minutes loading up the ingredients and it’s great to have fresh bread waiting for you!

[deltadoc]

I wouldn't be without my Zojirushi bread machine. Makes pizza dough, which then knead a bit more on the countertop before putting it on the cornmeal dusted peel.

However, every once in a while, I am in the mood for really heavy whole wheat or 5-grain bread like my grandmother used to make. Then I use my 1964 Vita-mix where I can take whole wheat berries, grind them in it. It grinds so fast that it generates enough heat that you can add the water, yeast, maybe TBSP of olive oil and TBSP of honey and knead it right in the Vita-Mix.

Then just dump it all out into a greased bread pan, and let it rise. (The griddle on my Thermador gas cooktop at the lowest setting is perfect for dough rising).

THen plop the pan in the oven and Grandma's bread!

doc

[pennylane]

Guys, please help me. I am having a huge dilemma. I've already done a few searches of past threads/messages but there are so many conflicting opinions. I need the straight dope.

People at work are telling me to buy a bread machine. Their daily raving about the smell of freshly-baked bread in the morning is driving me crazy. But here's my dilemma. It seems their main two reasons for advocating the bread machine are the following :

- it works out cheaper in the long run than buying bread, and

- it's easy to use.

The thing is, I don't really give a damn about either of these factors (especially the first one, which frankly I find hard to believe). What I want to know is whether the bread machine can make bread that's better than bakery bread. I already make my own bread all the time, but I find that at best, it's only as good as the bread I buy at the bakery, and usually rather amateur in appearance. As a result, I rarely feel confident enough to compete with the local bakery and tend to confine my bread-making activities to things like pizza and calzone dough, pastries, hamburger rolls, etc. Because I like working with yeast, kneading, etc. and I wouldn't get that with a bread machine. For me, the attraction of the bread machine would be the ability to produce bread to match what I can get at the bakery, with a consistency that I can't get on my own.

However when I asked my co-workers whether their bread machine bread is actually better than bakery bread, they said, "Once you get used to it." What does that mean? Why should it take getting used to?

Now I think that they probably never baked bread at home before they got their bread machines, so perhaps they're just bowled over by the smell of freshly-baked bread, etc. and don't really have any other basis for their preference.

Any thoughts? I would really appreciate it.

[MSRadell]

I like you have made homemade bread many times and agree the results and their best are equal to a good bakery. I'd always remembered the bread my grandmother used to bake when I was young and I was getting that when I made bread.

My wife and I now have a bread maker (Zojirushi) and it almost makes bread as good as I remember my grandmother making. It seems to be a little moister than the bread I baked or get from a bakery. Especially if you use it while it's still warm I think it's in the best bread I've ever had. I'm sure some people are able to make bread at home without a bread maker that's just as good but the bread maker makes it so simple. It's also nice to walk into the house and smell fresh baked bread without having gone through the work of making it!

[earlgrey_44]

When you buy a bread machine, you buy an automated kneader, proofer, and oven, and any bread machine is a better kneader and proofer than it is an oven. There are tricks you can do to move toward artisanal breads, see:

http://www.amazon.com/Rustic-European-Brea...99049703&sr=1-1

But, you will never really quite get there with the robobaker.

Many people don’t care, since they mainly want control over ingredients, convenience, and fresh bread smell. This describes the everyday me. There is a thread on egullet called “in defense of the bread machine” that covers this pretty well.

Incidentally, my Salton bread machine was flimsier than my current Panasonic, which is built like a tank. The non-stick surface of the paddle and pan rubbed off quickly on the Salton, not so the Panasonic. Breadman is a Salton product – does the Ultimate model suffer from this?

Tell you what, I don’t know what part of Paris you live in, but if you let me live with you, I volunteer to be the one who goes down to the boulangerie every day….I would not need (heh heh) my Panasonic there.

Guys, please help me.  I am having a huge dilemma.  I've already done a few searches of past threads/messages but there are so many conflicting opinions.  I need the straight dope.

People at work are telling me to buy a bread machine.  Their daily raving about the smell of freshly-baked bread in the morning is driving me crazy.  But here's my dilemma.  It seems their main two reasons for advocating the bread machine are the following :

- it works out cheaper in the long run than buying bread, and

- it's easy to use.

The thing is, I don't really give a damn about either of these factors (especially the first one, which frankly I find hard to believe).  What I want to know is whether the bread machine can make bread that's better than bakery bread.  I already make my own bread all the time, but I find that at best, it's only as good as the bread I buy at the bakery, and usually rather amateur in appearance.  As a result, I rarely feel confident enough to compete with the local bakery and tend to confine my bread-making activities to things like pizza and calzone dough, pastries, hamburger rolls, etc.  Because I like working with yeast, kneading, etc. and I wouldn't get that with a bread machine.  For me, the attraction of the bread machine would be the ability to produce bread to match what I can get at the bakery, with a consistency that I can't get on my own.

However when I asked my co-workers whether their bread machine bread is actually better than bakery bread, they said, "Once you get used to it."  What does that mean?  Why should it take getting used to?

Now I think that they probably never baked bread at home before they got their bread machines, so perhaps they're just bowled over by the smell of freshly-baked bread, etc. and don't really have any other basis for their preference.

Any thoughts?  I would really appreciate it.

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[kbjesq]

However when I asked my co-workers whether their bread machine bread is actually better than bakery bread, they said, "Once you get used to it."  What does that mean?  Why should it take getting used to?

Now I think that they probably never baked bread at home before they got their bread machines, so perhaps they're just bowled over by the smell of freshly-baked bread, etc. and don't really have any other basis for their preference.

Any thoughts?  I would really appreciate it.

←

I love, love, love my Zojirushi breadmachine and I use it several times per week. However, I can imagine no reasonable standard whereby the bread that it produces could be considered "better" than a loaf from a good Parisian bakery.

If I lived near a good bakery and money was no object, I strongly doubt that I would ever use my lovely breadmachine again.

[pennylane]

Tell you what, I don’t know what part of Paris you live in, but if you let me live with you, I volunteer to be the one who goes down to the boulangerie every day….I would not need (heh heh) my Panasonic there.

 

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I love, love, love my Zojirushi breadmachine and I use it several times per week.  However, I can imagine no reasonable standard whereby the bread that it produces could be considered "better" than a loaf from a good Parisian bakery.

If I lived near a good bakery and money was no object, I strongly doubt that I would ever use my lovely breadmachine again. 

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Thank you guys! This is what I suspected, but I just needed to hear it from people who actually own bread machines. Now I can put the bread machine question to rest once and for all (until I move away from France, that is!).

Thanks again for your help! You guys rock!