Bread maker, but not

fatbeetle

jk0 wrote: »

Bread makers use very little electricity to bake the bread. I measured mine and it's about 0.25kWh, so about 3p on peak rate here.

In view of that, is it really worth the faff of taking the dough out to bake in a bread oven?

A fair point in the light of this being in the "thrift" section.

But oven baked bread has a better crust, and doesn't have that annoying hole in it from the paddle.

rosie383

Hi all.
I have used just normal sachets of yeast from Lidl /Aldi and whatever flour I happen to want to use up. Normal plain flour and also some strong white bread flour which was lurking in the cupboard.

Honestly couldn't tell the difference once it was baked.

JIL

I often use my bread maker to make the dough, I prefer to make a few rolls or make different shaped loaves that are easier to slice and fit in the toaster.
I had an old cheap bread maker that gave up after years of use and replaced it with a panosonic. Can't think there was any difference. Although if I used the full programme and baked the loaf the panosonic was much better.

Prinzessilein

I have a mini breadmaker from Lakeland.

Disability means that kneading the dough by hand is just too much for me most days.

My machine has a function for making-the-dough - I have used this to make rolls before. I think most modern breadmakers have a 'dough' setting.

CheshireBumpkin

@fatbeetle describes exactly what I used to do.

Whilst not money-saving at the outset, I bought a Kenwood Chef with a bread hook. It's perfect for the dough making stage, but importantly can be (and is) used for a 101 other things as well. A breadmaker is pretty-much a one trick pony, so if you'd like to perform any other tricks, a good quality stand mixer could actually represent a good investment.

Even in a normal size Kenwood Chef you can prepare double the amount of dough you can in a normal breadmaker too, and make twice the amount of bread at the same time - reducing the baking costs and faff as the extra can go straight in the freezer.

The initial outlay is higher of course, but the Kenwood is likely to be in use for decades and the actual cost per year is probably less than a cheap breadmaker that will often keel over after a year or two. Mine's been going for about 12 years so far, with the replacement of a single rubber foot at a price of less than £2...