Panasonic Breadmakers Tips and Quick Questions Thread

Honey_Bear

Oooh Penny, how exciting! My top tip would be to start with the cheaper flours and the bread will taste fabulous, but it's not the end of the world when you forget to add something and it doesn't work. I still love the Basics-type range of flours from all of the supermarkets, but we now allow ourselves to indulge in more expensive ones when we're feeling flush. It might be obvious to everyone else, but the quality of the end-product is really influenced by the quality of the ingredients!

Farway

My top tip would be use a bread mix top start with, so as not to get a disappointing first loaf

I can recommend Asda Great to Bake - Mixed Grain and Seed Breadmix 75p

Or the Wright's Parmesan & sun dried tomato mix

Waitrose do nice mixed as well, and also sell the expensive, but never fails, Canadian hard flour

And use baby bath warm water every time

PennyGSD

Thanks both - I actually have quite a bit of bread flour in stock as I went through a phase of handbaking all our loaves but unfortunately life overtook me and I simply didn't have time to do this regularly. It's scary how quickly you fall back into old lazy ways once you get used to buying the odd loaf or two!

Anyway, I've been stamping my feet in annoyance as we haven't needed a standard loaf yet (6 whole days!) and I didn't want to bake one and then simply freeze it, but the good news is that we actually will need a loaf for tomorrow lunchtime so I'll be testing the timer overnight tonight.

I have however made a spicy fruit loaf - fantastic - and a ciabatta mixed and cooked in the machine. Great loaf, nothing like ciabatta, but really good bread anyway, cut into chunks for using as garlic bread. OH made me laugh as both the loaves I've made look very similar. 27 buttons, 1 setting!

Dawning

Problem with brand new breadmaker.
It's just arrived this morning, I made my first loaf, but when I got it out of the pan I noticed a couple of small patches of mould on the bread. When I sliced into it there were some areas of mould inside too.
obviously I've binned the loaf and given the pan a really good scrub, but has anyone come across this before?
I don't understand how it can come out mouldy when it's freshly baked.
I've got another baking right now, am kind of assuming there's a problem with the flour - I used a bread mix - but it's very off putting especially for my first loaf.

honeythewitch

Dawning wrote: »

Problem with brand new breadmaker.
It's just arrived this morning, I made my first loaf, but when I got it out of the pan I noticed a couple of small patches of mould on the bread. When I sliced into it there were some areas of mould inside too.
obviously I've binned the loaf and given the pan a really good scrub, but has anyone come across this before?
I don't understand how it can come out mouldy when it's freshly baked.
I've got another baking right now, am kind of assuming there's a problem with the flour - I used a bread mix - but it's very off putting especially for my first loaf.

How revolting. It couldn't be grease from the paddle connection or something, could it?

recovering_spendaholic

I make pitta breads by using the dough setting (16 on mine) the recipe I use is 7g sachet of yeast, 500g white bread flour, 9g salt, 30g olive oil. When dough is done I divide it into 12 - 14 pieces and roll or stretch them into ovals. Then I bake them on baking tray sprinkled with fine semolina for about 12 minutes on 210. They puff up beautifully and freeze well too.

Dawning

honeythewitch wrote: »

How revolting. It couldn't be grease from the paddle connection or something, could it?

I don't think it was grease, I washed the bin and paddle thoroughly before I used it.

Well to update, I've baked another loaf this morning. I waited for it to cool then tore it apart almsot crumb by crumb to check it was ok, and it was fine. I have no idea what happened yesterday, but hopefully it will be ok from now on. Two packs of bread mix wasted!

Honey_Bear

I could do with some help again, please. I bought my first Panny breadmaker on G'tree and was very happy with it, but it was a very old model and produced tiny loaves. OH and I loved it so much when another, more up to date model appeared on G'tree, we got it and I use it every two to three days.


A friend was on his uppers, so I lent him my older, smaller one to help cut the family grocery budget and he's had it for about 18 months. He's now moving abroad and has returned it in working order but it's looking terrible inside. (He said an unbaked loaf had exploded in it, he'd cleaned it up and it had worked fine since.) I'm not sure about his version of 'clean.'


A damp cloth alone is not going to sort this out. Clearly, he's been baking the 'residue' on repeatedly and it is now looking pretty grim in there, although the pan itself and the blade are fine and there are no lumps of quadruple baked dough. It's the inside that's 'showing signs of wear and tear,' shall we say.


Has anyone got any suggestions as to how I can clean this baby up? I'd like to pop it back on G'tree to give someone else the affordable opportunity to find out whether they want to go down the breadmaker route without lashing out on a new one which is how I got started and I consider it very Old Style MSE.

terra_ferma

Honey_Bear wrote: »

I could do with some help again, please. I bought my first Panny breadmaker on G'tree and was very happy with it, but it was a very old model and produced tiny loaves. OH and I loved it so much when another, more up to date model appeared on G'tree, we got it and I use it every two to three days.


A friend was on his uppers, so I lent him my older, smaller one to help cut the family grocery budget and he's had it for about 18 months. He's now moving abroad and has returned it in working order but it's looking terrible inside. (He said an unbaked loaf had exploded in it, he'd cleaned it up and it had worked fine since.) I'm not sure about his version of 'clean.'


A damp cloth alone is not going to sort this out. Clearly, he's been baking the 'residue' on repeatedly and it is now looking pretty grim in there, although the pan itself and the blade are fine and there are no lumps of quadruple baked dough. It's the inside that's 'showing signs of wear and tear,' shall we say.


Has anyone got any suggestions as to how I can clean this baby up? I'd like to pop it back on G'tree to give someone else the affordable opportunity to find out whether they want to go down the breadmaker route without lashing out on a new one which is how I got started and I consider it very Old Style MSE.

I clean mine with warm water, soap and a sponge that can be used with non-stick pans.
Or if you can't wash it properly you could still freecycle it.

bonytony_2

My wife just used a knife to get the paddle out on our new sd2501, its badly scratched where can I buy a genuine replacement as most of the ones online seem to be fakes.