I am in love with my Panasonic breadmaker

julianj1

I mistakenly posted about the Panny on another BM thread. I'm in the proper one for SD253 groupies!

I've found it virtually impossible to make a bad loaf (even after the pub, timed, for Saturday morning). You can just slosh in a tbsp of honey instead of sugar if you like.

In true MSE style I accurately calculated the costs of a 400g wholemeal loaf

Ingredients: about 32p

Electricity 6 p (I have a monitor) (4+ hours wholemeal programme)

So total cost say 40p. So even adding in the capital cost, in a year maybe you would be saving money over shop bought, unless you were buying the very cheapest dross from the supermarket .

FZwanab

I just wanted to also recommend the French loaf, soooo delicious. Nicest loaf so far and pizza dough is great, I doubled the quantities and it made 2 deep pan pizzas well risen yummy.

pollyanna24

After everyone's recommendations, I've decided to get the 253 rather than the 252.

Even though I could get triple points from Tesco at the moment, I'm resisting and gona buy in January sales.

How much do you think it will go down by? My rents are giving me money towards it for Xmas, so I suppose I should really wait until I have the money anyways.

ethansmum

I don't think it will go down in price. I got mine in November for £70 (currys), then amazon put their price up to £84ish and I've not seen it cheaper since.

citylen

I am experimenting with my new!! panasonic breadmaker and up to now I have made perfect bread following the instructions given. But I want to gradually wean my boys off the basic white on to wholemeal by adding more wholemeal flour. I've started by using a 75/25% mix but my question is do I use the 4 hour or 5 hour programme?

apple_mint

citylen, my OH is the expert on this. He uses the 5 seeded recipe on page 26 of the handbook (leaving out caraway seeds) and does a 50/50 mix of white and wholemeal. He then bakes it on the Wholewheat bake programme (5 hours for the large loaf). The bread is gorgeous. We like 5 seeded bread.

lizzyb1812

There are different wholemeal loaves using varying percentages of wholemeal to white flour in the book that comes with the Panasonic and the timing to use is shown at the top of each section/page. If a 75% white/25% wholemeal is not there I would use the instructions for the 50%/50% version

OK - just checked - you can do a 50%/50% loaf in 5 hours or 3 hours using "whole wheat bake" or "whole wheat bake rapid". I'd use those for your 75%/25% loaf - your choice on 3 hours or 5 hours - I've had more success with the longer programmes generally

lizzyb

dannahaz

It may depend on the flour you are using. I usually use Carrs wholemeal flour, and they recommend you just use the normal white bread cycle. That works for me.

Personally I don't tend to use the rapid bake cycles (even for white bread) unless it's an emergency. The bread comes out OK, but not always brown enough.

btw, regarless of which brand or type of flour you use, there are some great recipes on the Carrs site...
http://www.carrsbreadmaker.info/recipes/index.html

ethansmum

There are great recipes in the booklet for 50%wm/50% white.

I love the fastbake bread, its not as tall but I do love the doughy taste.

MrsTinks

Well I have the Panny 253 too and I love it! I was a bit miffed to find it didn't have jam program and cake program and infact the leaflet says you should mix all the ingredients BEFORE putting them in and then put on bake only for any cake... riiiiiiiight We'll see about THAT! :rotfl: One thing I DO miss is on my old BM I could set up my own bake programs (so you can basically program it with your own settings for any recipies you might have and you wanna tweak) but over all I have to say I am chuffed with my Panny It's SO quiet!!! I guess it IS possible to live without a jam program