Bread Maker - worth it?

cooking-mama

I love the kenwood BM450,The main reason i choose this one is because it makes bigger loaves than the panasonic(altho like most BM's it has a choice of 3 sizes)
I set mine almost every night and waken up to fresh bread in the morning.
shop around tho,cos prices do vary from time to time.

pinkmami

one thing that springs into mind is the paddle. Does it stay in the loaf!?!?!

laloopi

The paddle leaves an indent in the loaf so some of the slices in the middle will have a bit missing. It's really not a problem though, but if it bothers you then you could use your breadmaker for the dough and bake the loaf in the oven.

I kept putting off buying a breadmaker as I was worried about not using it but then I managed to bag my mum and dad's. It is absolutely fantastic, I use it all the time for bread, pizza bases, banana loaf, breadsticks and so on. We've got friends coming to stay so I'm even going to try my hand at making some croissants for breakfast (to save on the pennies)! The possibilities are endless.

nykied

The paddle in my BM450 doesn't stay in the loaf, although as laloopi says, it does leave a bit of a hole in the bottom of the loaf, but that's not a problem for me.

As the machine gets more and more used, it could start to happen as the non-stick wears off, I guess.

cheerfulness4

pinkmami wrote: »

Thanks for the info Val. I'm eyeing the Morphy Richards one ATM http://www.amazon.co.uk/Morphy-Richards-48281-Breadmaker-Coolwall/dp/B00275FV5K/ref=sr_1_5?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1294342525&sr=1-5-

Thats the one I have. Love it! Works well over night and I rarely have the paddle stuck in the loaf, maybe once or twice but I'm thinking that might be down to my mixture type.

valk_scot

My Tesco breadmaker came with a handy little crochet hook type thing, for hoiking the paddle out the loaf after baking. Really useful little gizmo.

Swan_2

I've used a Morphy Richards Fastbake, a Panny SD255? & a Kenwood 450

the bread the MR made was 'cakey' not very nice at all, but it seemed fine untill I tried the others & they were an absolute revelation, so I'd recommend the Panny (there's a newer model 257) or the Kenwood


the Kenwood's my favourite though, it has far more features & is waaay better-looking

pinkmami

Well the Morphy Richards is in the post thanks to Amazon!! Bought flour & yeast in Tesco this AM to try out!!!!

Habibiboo

Have fun with it! I bought ours last April with wedding vouchers (Rachel Allen BM in Debenhams sale). It's proved (geddit?) to be last year's best buy - we've not bought a single loaf since. The manuals tell you about adding sugar and things and not to deviate from the recipe,but we have played around with it and now omit sugar completely and have reduced salt (we're at that age) without any ill effects to the quality of the final loaf. You might need to know that breadmaker bread goes stale more quickly because it lacks all those preservatives, so use the odds and ends up quickly - I recycle crusty leftovers into breadcrumbs for cooking or make a bread pudding for Himself to take to work to snack on through the week!!

flora48

Love my breadmaker and so does everyone else. I have a middle priced one, Morphy Richards, and I just use a bread mix form the supermarket. Three quarters of the packet makes a big loaf in my machine, loaf costs about 60p. the important thing is to learn about your macnine and really study the quantities you are dealing with.