Breadmaker - convince me !

louise_1981

Thanks for that! really helpful, just a shame I didn't come on earlier! Part of the reason I got rid of my last one( not a panasonic, I might add) is that the loaves were ok, but not to my OH taste, so I was still buying bread and making my own. Hopefully this will change his mind!

I have my first batch of medium white on now, chosen the 4 hour medium loaf from the recipe book that came with it. I am so looking forward to it!!

louise_1981

OK first loaf devoured! Guess OH was rather hungry. Granted it went on beans on toast, but it was lovely and I can put some more in!

I also managed to sell a marc jacobs bag with came free with some perfume for 17 pounds+ postage, so makes the BM free or the perfume half price. BM free sounds better!

jonthedog

I recently purchased some Tesco value muesli for about 58p/KG. It used to be as good as alpen, but they have changed the formula recently so unfortunately I found it now tastes like cardboard. Looked at the ingredients, however, and they appear to be pretty much the same stuff as found in granary flour, i.e. :
Wheat Flakes, Oat Flakes, Barley Flakes, Malted Toasted Wheat Flakes, Raisins (4.5%), Whey Powder, Sugar, Hazelnuts
So I stuffed the nut dispenser in my Panasonic SD253 with the stuff, put it on the Bake Rasin setting, and sure enough, out came a delicious 'granary' loaf (with the added bonus of a few hazelnuts and rasins if you get a lucky slice). :beer:
I reckon the kg of muesli should last for around 20 loaves, so it works out far, far cheaper than buying specialist 'granary' flour.

Winky,_The_House_Elf

jonthedog wrote: »

So I stuffed the nut dispenser in my Panasonic SD253 with the stuff, put it on the Bake Rasin setting, and sure enough, out came a delicious 'granary' loaf (with the added bonus of a few hazelnuts and rasins if you get a lucky slice). :beer:.

Can I ask what type of flour did you add it to, please? I do a 75% white 25% wholemeal mix, would it work with that do you think?

Winky

jonthedog

Winky,_The_House_Elf wrote: »

Can I ask what type of flour did you add it to, please?
Winky

I have tried this with both a straight white and a 75/25 White/wholemeal (using Tesco own brand strong bread flour) and it works great with both. No reason to suppose it wouldn't work with 100% wholemeal though.
I vaguely seem to remember the manual says it's best to filter out the bits in granary flour and add them in to the rasin/nut dispenser anyway to protect the non-stick coating, so this technique is protecting your machine as well as being cheap.

larmy16

I purchased the SD254 for a present. I have the older one I think SD255 with raisin dispenser which I never have used.

Reading the reviews on Amazon, one poster said she mixed all the nuts, seeds etc into the original mix with no problems, therefore no need to buy one with the dispenser.

HTH. I love my panasonic and it makes fabulous bread - sadly my waistline limits the amount I use it.

soon2bjobless

I recently got an old bread maker from freecyle - its a Moulinex about 4 years old.

I made a milk loaf 2 days ago - I used proper strong white bread and a sachet of Allinsons yeast - I must admit it was lovely!

Yesterday (the loaves are quite small - nothing to do with the fact they are soooo yummy with butter!) I made exactly the same loaf just using Asdas cheapy flour and Asdas sachet of yeast and the loaf was so much nicer - really light and fluffy!

kkp6

I recently bought a Panasonic 254 - been looking for a while and put off by price but found a special offer for new Littlewoods Direct customers getting £30 off first order (just do a search for Littlewods Direct voucher - there is £30 off orders over £60) this made it £55 incl delivery which was not much different from some of the cheaper models... the bread is great! (using Lidl flour and Lidl yeast sachets to date).

Where do people get good value wholemeal flour? (Lidl only sale white, and the wholemeal flour in Waitrose was £1.50 for 1.5 kg)

jonthedog

larmy16 wrote: »

Reading the reviews on Amazon, one poster said she mixed all the nuts, seeds etc into the original mix with no problems, therefore no need to buy one with the dispenser.

From what I understand, adding nuts and seeds at the start won't affect the quality of the bread, but it does cause the non-stick coating on the bread pan to wear out quicker if there are hard bits in with the dough during the vigourous kneeding process. Having a dispenser enusres that the 'bits' just get a light stiring in, which doesn't grind down the coating so much. This is according to the Panasonic manual; I'd be interested to know how many uses the amazon reviewer actually gets out of the pan in practice.

Janebo12

Hi

I have been reading about breadmakers on here with interest and finally plucked up the courage to go ahead and buy one.

I just wanted to pass on that Amazon have knocked the price down on the Panasonic SD254 to just over £68 (super saver delivery option) - fortunately I had a £10 lightspeed voucher so I have only paid £58!!

Looking forward to it arriving now so that I can get started - I have got really dismayed at the quality of some supermarket bread recently, so I really want to make a go of this.

Thanks for convincing me
Amanda