Which is the best home breadmaker?

Lovely_Dad

Well my old Prima died, it managed to keep going almost to the end of the cycle before the lights went out forever so we had an edible if slightly anaemic loaf as a farewell gift.

I'd been looking on ebay and found one or two prospects, one possibly even local to me but I needed a replacement machine there and then. Couldn't face the prospect of shop-bought bread even for a day or two. I hotfooted it into town to see what I could get and found Comet had both the Kenwood BM450 and the Panasonic so I could at least see them side by side if not try them out. My thoughts were-

1. Kenwood is enormous, takes up about twice the space of the Panasonic 255 and space is at a premium in our kitchen.

2. The bread pan in the Kenwood is made out of pressed metal and feels much more flimsy than the Panasonic cast alloy pan. The non-stick coating on the Panasonic also appeared to be much tougher. They both appeared to be roughly the same size and shape so nothing to help there.

I was leaning towards the Panasonic when I found an ebay seller with an ex-demo 255 for £55 just up the road from me and that was it, decision made. I can only say I have no regrets. If I come into money and have enough room in the kitchen I shall buy a BM450 and sell the one I like least, though I doubt anybody is going to be upset whichever they choose. Actually, I'll probably keep both as it's hard work keeping up with demand with just one machine. Overall I can't see anyone has much to gain from going "upmarket" if they have a cheaper machine that produces bread they like but my limited experience leads me to believe your failures will be fewer with a better quality machine and it will last longer.

The Prima gave good results with bread mix but more often than not produced a gooey mess when trying to make bread from scratch. Now I buy 3kg of Allinson's Strong White, £1.72 on pretty much every supermarket shelf, 125g Dove Fast yeast, 99p when you can find it (learned not to buy the yellow tin of Allinson's yeast, it's for hand-making bread), the cheapest salt I can find and sugar, plain old white refined. I did use sea salt for a while, I found some in my son's box of cooking stuff he left with us while he's away on his work experience training. Felt very good, all that special sea goodness, until I found out how much it costs. Funny how quickly all the mercury poisoning, gulf oil spills & general effluent which could also be in it comes to the fore when you see the extortionate price they charge for sea-salt. NaCl is NaCl, the rest is fancy words & packaging, or so I believe. Our bread costs a fraction of supermarket prices, even allowing for the cost of electricity, but we'd still go this way if it cost more.

I did try to buy some super-duper Canadian bread flour from a website run by people who claim to have worked with Panasonic when they were developing the programs for their breadmakers but their website wasn't working. I phoned and the bloke said he'd call back when it was but never did. To be honest, their flour is probably very good but I think it cost something like 4 times as much as the Allinson's and I can't believe it could be that much better.

The Panasonic does have a longer cycle than I'm used to, but 3 hours, 4 hours, it's a long wait and that extra hour effectively makes no difference, you have to plan ahead to bake your own bread. Stranger still it sits there apparently doing nothing at all for about 20 minutes, I thought it was broken when I first tried it but all is revealed if you look at the program cycle breakdown in the manual. All I can say is the Japanese would not have made it so if it did nothing useful and the Panny never fails except when I really make it. Forgetting to put the paddle in, forgetting to put the yeast in and using old (or the wrong) yeast will make it throw out a bad loaf. The kids still shake off the loose flour & eat most of the stodgy cake of failed bread, though.

Damp loaves will happen if you leave them in the pan for too long after baking has finished, I can't see anything that could be done about that. Use the timer to ensure you're there when it's done.

I've found that using 450g of flour & adjusting everything down proportionally from the recipes given in the manual for 550g, setting size to XL, leaving the crust in the middle, neither light nor dark, produces a loaf just the right size for slices to fit in the toaster. Setting the crust to dark tends to produce a much thicker crust rather than a darker one.

Now all I need is a way to slice it thin enough for sandwiches.

Asturrock

I got my twin bread maker from freecycle. It's a morphy richards and only cost me the price of two new blades (about £7). The bread is light and fluffy and makes two fairly sizeable loaves. I found the secret is to follow the recipe instructions to the letter (well in my case the beast way). I can also make pizza dough in it which is absolutely the very best!!! I make two lots, one for pizza the other for garlic bread. A few cooked chopped tomatoes a sprinkle of cheese and herbs and it's a yummy feast.

Not sure how cost effective it is to make ones own bread but the quality and taste can't be beaten compared to shop bought sliced!!!

skyelark

Hi there! :hello:
Really new to this, (this is my first post) but I have done a lot of reading through the site.
I have been thinking about buying a breadmaker and wanted to know which out of panasonic and MR are the best. Did find some old threads, but wondered if things had changed, which are most popular and for what reason. Any tips/advice welcome.
Thanks
Skyelark :wave:
x

Penelope_Penguin

skyelark wrote: »

Hi there! :hello:
Really new to this, (this is my first post) but I have done a lot of reading through the site.
I have been thinking about buying a breadmaker and wanted to know which out of panasonic and MR are the best. Did find some old threads, but wondered if things had changed, which are most popular and for what reason. Any tips/advice welcome.
Thanks
Skyelark :wave:
x

Welcome! Both Panansonic and MR have their followers - depends what features you want, and your budget. I have a Panasonic, and would replace with a similar model

I'll add this to the Which BM thread later, to keep suggestions together.

cooking-mama

Hello skylark..ive voted "other",That being a kenwood BM450...I did think about buying the new panasonic Sd55,but ive decided to save for the Kenwood.
http://www.lakeland.co.uk/kenwood-bread-machine/F/keyword/breadmaker/product/13386

It gets mixed reviews to be honest,but ive tried one and loved it.

Habibiboo

Hi
I've voted 'other' as mine's the Rachel Allen breadmaker, I've had for approx 6 months and is doing fine. I've got the hang of fine tuning the recipes and it's all going good! I too researched which BM to buy but in the end it came down to cost - we had some Debenhams vouchers as a wedding gift and the RA breadmaker was in the Debenhams sale for £35, which we could cover with the vouchers. I guess my point is though that even though in the end it cost us nothing, I'd still have been very happy with it for £35. I do realise though that saying this 'aloud' will probably put the kiss of death on the thing .....!

cooking-mama

HabibiBoo wrote: »

Hi
I've voted 'other' as mine's the Rachel Allen breadmaker, I've had for approx 6 months and is doing fine. I've got the hang of fine tuning the recipes and it's all going good! I too researched which BM to buy but in the end it came down to cost - we had some Debenhams vouchers as a wedding gift and the RA breadmaker was in the Debenhams sale for £35, which we could cover with the vouchers. I guess my point is though that even though in the end it cost us nothing, I'd still have been very happy with it for £35. I do realise though that saying this 'aloud' will probably put the kiss of death on the thing .....!

Habibiboo,I had the rachel allen one for 10 months there and loved it,I got mine for £34 (1/2 price in Argos),I loved the way it had 2 paddles and made long rather than high loaves..and like you i adapted my own recipes(found the ones in the recipe book had too much oil and sugar in),unfortunately one of my kneaders totaly seized up..Argos couldnt replace or repair,so just gave me a refund in vouchers,this is why im saving for (and waiting on the price to drop)on the kenwood BM450..its the only other breadmaker that im aware of that has a fan in it...hope you get long use from the Rachel Allen one,it realy is a great wee breadmaker..nobody seems to stock it anymore tho.

Marksy

I went through loads of reviews, before finally settling on the Kenwood BM450 (when we bought it, it was the Which best buy - earlier this year). It's quite pricey in comparison but it's really good. Even the 1hr loafs are good, tasty and have good texture. Whichever you buy, when you're used to home made bread, buying from the supermarket again feels wrong - and the bread is no where near as nice. Sounds daft, but I can almost taste all the junk thats in supermarket bread.

Swan_2

I've used all 3 makes & would recommend either the Panny or the Kenwood

my first BM was a Morphy Richards & I'd no idea how bad the cake bread it made was till it broke & I tried a Panny,the difference was like day & night

the Kenwood 450 is my favourite though, the bread's comparable to the Panasonic + it has a fan, a viewing window, you can programme it yourself if you want to for custom loaves, & it's a real looker


it's currently, on Amazon anyway, a lot cheaper than the Pannys

skyelark

HabibiBoo wrote: »

Hi
I've voted 'other' as mine's the Rachel Allen breadmaker, I've had for approx 6 months and is doing fine. I've got the hang of fine tuning the recipes and it's all going good! I too researched which BM to buy but in the end it came down to cost - we had some Debenhams vouchers as a wedding gift and the RA breadmaker was in the Debenhams sale for £35, which we could cover with the vouchers. I guess my point is though that even though in the end it cost us nothing, I'd still have been very happy with it for £35. I do realise though that saying this 'aloud' will probably put the kiss of death on the thing .....!

That is interesting! I will defo price up the rachel allen one now after what you and cookingmama said. Thank you to all for your prompt responses. It makes such a difference to have some advice from people who have used the BMs before you buy. Its a lot of money!