Is a bread maker machine a good investment?

SailorSam

I bought my Panny about 6yrs ago. I thought it was expensive at around £75 and was going to get a cheap one until people on here told me how much better the Panny is. The bread i make is 70% wholemeal / 30% white so probably costs about 50p, and i'll probably use it twice a week and make Pizza dough some weeks, so i think it was money well spent. I'm glad i listened to those that said i should get a quality machine.

Don't forget homemade bread is more fattening ..........
.... Cos it tastes that much nicer you'll want to eat more of it while it's still hot.

suki1964

To be honest I think it all depends on how heavy a bread eater you are

Now me, I ADORE bread. I'm on a soft diet right now ( week so far) and my body is screaming out for bread, white sliced, paninis, ciabatta , Tiger loaf, whatever. They are the types of bread I like at home and a bread maker just doesn't hack it for me

Not to say I don't make bread ( and pizza base ) but I find hand made works for me. Ive had two breadmakers in the past, both given away

kippers

I use mine for bread/rolls/pizza etc and sometimes banana cake. I have had a BM for 13 years now and I wouldn't be without it....it was a god send a few years ago when my dd2 became lactose intolerant as nearly all shop bread had milk in then (not so now though).

I have gone through 3 bm over the years as i use it daily = two morphy richards and my latest is a Panasonic.....which do I prefer?......it's got to be my Panasonic as it makes lovely bread, but saying that I do think Morphy richards aftersale service was great.

[Deleted User]

I have had a bm for 20 years and zojirushi was my first one, prior to that I made all my bread in a kenwood chef. The bm released me and gave me time. I am now on my 2nd panny and do lots of different loaves, including sourdough, ciabatta, french etc. This panny is 2 years old and sits on the worktop in my small kitchen

This will be my last panny as there are only 2 of us and it takes up quite a bit of room, as my workspace is very limited and I have a kenwood mixer as well as other very important and used `gadgets` I can make superb bread with my mixer but even better bread via a combo of hand and mixer, I am speaking of my sourdough which is in process today, this is the bread that we could not live without as it is so kind to the stomach and the long slow rise gets rid of most of the phytic acid in the grain. I could manipulate this rise via the bm by the way, so it is horses for courses. If I just did the panny breads and there are many types, then I would buy another panny when this one dies. Panny breads are superb and the pizza dough is wonderful when the grandchildren come here, they make their own pizzas

Main thing is to keep the bm out, then you will use it and yes I would buy one op, as the expensive breads are a doddle to make in the panny

I use shipton organic flours and organic yeast from shipton mill, I don`t add sugar, so I always know exactly what is in my bread. If you buy a `sourdough` loaf then it will be made with yeast plus a blob of sourdough, whereas mine has no yeast. Buying ready made bread is never as good as making your own