Panasonic Breadmakers Tips and Quick Questions Thread

Jazzy_B

I never use Vitamin C ,lemon juice, or milk powder.
My bread usually just consists of bread flour, yeast, salt and olive oil, as I usually use the 6hr French bread setting on a timer. If I'm using a different setting I'll put in a tsp sugar. The reason I don't use them is I usually get an excellent loaf without, and don't see any need to add extras. I generally use Allinsons Easy Bake yeast, and never have problems with it,keeping it in the fridge after opening. I use a tiny amount more yeast to compensate for not using milk powder.
I use olive oil all the time , as I kid myself it's healthier than butter. A tablespoon is 15ml,tsp is 5ml, but I usually just put the pan on the digital scales, and measure the ingredients one at a time after setting it back to zero.
I make a loaf at least once a day, and never have any complaints

BitterAndTwisted

I would never, ever waste good-quality home-made olive oil in a bread mix. That should be used only for salads in my view. That stuff's like gold-dust and sometimes even more expensive.

beaujolais-nouveau

I have never added either lemon juice or vitamin C to make an ordinary bread loaf (ie white, wholewheat, granary).

I do use olive oil instead of butter (about an overflowing soup spoonful per 400ml flour) because I think it is better for you.

I have made loaves with and without milk powder and I can't see any difference so now I omit it.

What does make a BIG difference - both to texture and appearance - is adding an egg (as part of the liquid, put it in the measure first, whisk it, top up with water to the volume of water specified in the recipe) - one egg per 400ml or 500ml of flour. It seems to compensate for the fact that almost all the flour available to buy here in the UK has too little protein in it.

Jazzy_B

Panasonic regularly test the gluten content of flours. I've phoned them a few times, to check what flour is producing the best loaves at the time. I appreciate I'm very lucky and have access to several different supermarkets, and when I get a good bag, I tend to buy another ten of the same batch.If I have a bag with poor gluten content ,I just use it half and half with a good bag.
Thanks for the tip about an egg. Sounds like a good idea

Honey_Bear

Excellent help all round, thank you everyone.

I had exactly that conversation with the Sardinian lodger this morning about the olive oil, ie not cooking with Extra Virgin, Bitter and Twisted. She says they use EV for everything at home and wouldn't dream of using the cheaper later pressings in anything. It was her suggestion that we should use it in the breadmaker. I might try it to see how different the taste is, while we've got the opportunity.

Thank you for the tip about storing the opened Allinson's yeast tin in the fridge Jazzy B. I've only just gone over to using it, and hadn't noticed that.

I read some of the back-thread and discovered someone had said that the only difference they had noticed regarding milk powder was that with it, the loaf toasts better on the second day. As one large loaf lasts us three days, that is helpful.

I made hot cross bun dough around Easter (they were disappointing) and the recipe booklet talks about 'enriched dough' as having an egg added so I'll try adding an egg one day when I'm making a loaf without the timer. I remember having white specialist bakery bread in the late 1970s that had egg in it during the breadstrike and it was really gorgeous but I'd forgotten that until Beaujolais Nouveau mentioned it.

I'm not having any problems with gluten-type disappointing results, and I'm using wholemeal flour from Morribunds, M&S and Sainsbobs, and white flour from Lid! and Sains, so maybe I've got that joy to come.

What I do know is that adding a quarter of a teaspoon of Vit C powder last night resulted in the tallest loaf yet, baked to perfection, this morning. Despite the expense, I am going to go on using it unless I can get the same result by using a few drops of lemon juice, less than I added the first time I tried it.

Thanks again for all the help.

mollymoggs

We are (hopefully) picking up our SD-2501 today, and will be making bread tonight. I've read through most of this thread, and the gist I get is that most people follow the recipes from old machines. Is this still the case? I might try the first loaf as a basic white from the instructions, but I am willing to try the older ones. I'd need to get powdered milk, right? Is there one model whose recipes are the best?

This whole process of picking a machine was hard! We were stuck between the Kenwood 450, the Cuisinart (which comes with a 5 year warranty), and this one. At first my husband was annoyed that I couldn't make up my mind, but after I told him to look over the information and reviews, he agreed it wasn't cut and dry. We went with this one simply because our kitchen is small and the other two are pretty big pieces of kit, and the reviews were more favourable for the Panasonic.

I am silly with anticipation though. I can hand bake, and some times the loaves come out incredible. But sometimes it doesn't. And the hassle and mess means I start with good intentions buying loads of flour, but end up relying on store bought. I tried the "no knead", and it didn't really turn out great. Plus, it's not like most of them are totally no-touch. I still ended up cleaning up floured surfaces and sticky hands. So, we shelled out for it after not finding anything local on gumtree, in the charity shops or decent on Ebay. I will probably have loads of questions once we get it up and running.

Jazzy_B

I'd go with the recipes in the book a few times and see how it goes. Once you get a feel for the machine, and braver, you can try different options. Good luck with your first loaf

JulieM

I'd also start with recipes from the book which comes with the machine. I've got a new-ish Panasonic and you don't need dried milk for the recipes in the book.

mollymoggs

Well, the bread maker was a day late, but we made our first loaf last night (basic white, dark setting), and it came out nice. I think I am going to go for a French loaf next.

Andytheb

I have the panasonic 2502 with yeast dispenser and so far it has turned out wonderful loaves (except 1st one due to electricity being turned off)

I've only done white or half n half but I've always (apart from the messed up first loaf) put the water in first even though the book says to do it last.

Does it really make a difference?

At least with the 2502 it has a yeast dispenser which means I don't have to worry about it touching the salt or water on a timer

My best loaf was a large white on dark crust using Canadian flour from Sainsburys

(Aww can't post photos yet)

My recent 50% wholemeal have been on timer and they've been lovely. They seem to rise a lot with 25% Sainsburys strong white,25% Canadian white and 50% alinsons strong wholemeal

(If I could post images you would have seen a nice loaf here)

They taste nice just bread and butter but they're lovely toasted!;)

Just wondering I'd anyone has compared water first to water last...