Breadmakers

[happily renting]

How many of you have bread machines and what's your experience of them?

[ken_ichikawa]

How many of you have bread machines and what's your experience of them?

They are ok, I had one for a while, halve the salt content and ensure you activate the yeast before hand...

Probably the biggest issue is that it makes a loaf with a hole in it for the paddle thing when it mixes it and the loaves are an odd shape too.

[The Masked Tulip]

Deliah Smith's website has numerous easy bread receipes - just need the ingredients and a bread tin.

['Bart']

agreed never found a bread machine which could make bread as well as hand made.

Aren't bread makers the kind of gadget that gets a lot of initial use, then becomes too much of a chore (a bit like sandwhich toasters).

[ken_ichikawa]

Aren't bread makers the kind of gadget that gets a lot of initial use, then becomes too much of a chore (a bit like sandwhich toasters).

Nah you can buy premix bags whereby you just out in 1/4 of a bag and add some water...

But sandwich toasters? I always break mine from over use as I use them lots, problem is the quality has gone through the floor so badly that the teflon always comes off after a couple of weeks.

[pideypuss]

Got mine for four quid from a car boot sale a few years back and I love it. Use it all the time.

Don't buy one new - go to your local boot sale and there'll be loads of 'em for sale for around a fiver. That way, if you don't use it, you haven't lost much.

[Habeas Domus]

I know a lot of people seem to rave about these machines, but really kneading your own bread properly is only 5 minutes of exercise and the bread is soooo much better.

Spend the money on a few bread books - Bertinet is good and his come with a DVD

I used to have a panasonic bread maker but I ebayed it - not worth the effort to set the damn thing up, when you can just grab a mixing bowl instead.

Edit: I think a lot of people get started with machines, but once they get the 'breadmaking bug' they soon realise you don't need one - thats why there always loads of second hand ones.

The other downside of a machine is the bread always comes out with a big hole in the bottom where the mixing paddle was.

[winkie]

I have one and often use it, the olive bread is nice....it doesn't look so nice as bread made by hand, but when you make it by hand although it always tastes nice the texture is more hit and miss.

[TeddyBear]

Make bread myself - it is incredibly easy.

[winkie]

Make bread myself - it is incredibly easy.

....bread is basically flour and water....if you can get your strong flour at a good price and can bake your bread on a separate shelf in a hot oven when you are using it for something else you can save yourself heaps of money, knowing that you have a quality, tasty, healthy product for next to nothing .

[TeddyBear]

....bread is basically flour and water....if you can get your strong flour at a good price and can bake your bread on a separate shelf in a hot oven when you are using it for something else you can save yourself heaps of money, knowing that you have a quality, tasty, healthy product for next to nothing .

Get my bread flour at Lidl, it's a good price, although it did just go up 1p, as did their packets of dried yeast. Need to look into fresh yeast. Not too good at co-ordinating the oven so that does add cost, especially when I do pittas as oven needs to be at its hottest. Worth it though to know there is very little salt, only a little sugar and nothing else in the bread.

[winkie]

Get my bread flour at Lidl, it's a good price, although it did just go up 1p, as did their packets of dried yeast. Need to look into fresh yeast. Not too good at co-ordinating the oven so that does add cost, especially when I do pittas as oven needs to be at its hottest. Worth it though to know there is very little salt, only a little sugar and nothing else in the bread.

...some years ago, I would now and again ask our local baker for some fresh yeast, he never charged for it, with the fresh stuff to be active it needs to be used quite quickly and the quantity required is different...if you over do it it can make the bread taste yeasty.....like with everything it is all about trial and error...and having fun at the same time.

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

agreed never found a bread machine which could make bread as well as hand made. Also they take up a lot of space in your kitchen. I prefer using fresh yeast too rather than dried.

Try soda bread - easy to make and lovely with soup.

I'd have to disagree with you on that to an extent (not dissing good handmade bread in any sense). I've got a Panasonic SD 255 which is a fairly high end breadmaker and the results are very good.

My main incentive of using it is that whilst I don't mind taking 3 hours to bake by hand which is good for some types of bread, other styles such as French or Sour Dough take a lot longer and personally I can't afford the time to hang around 6-7 hours making bread. The breadmaker is great in that regard as I just add the ingredients, set the programme and leave it.

BTW if you want to save on buying yeast, try out sour dough bread, here is a good guide: http://www.io.com/~sjohn/sour.htm

[Johnny Storm]

I fancied one of these, but then I thought about how much flour costs, and how much yeast is, and how many hours of electricity the thing uses.

I reasoned its cheaper to buy bread.

[winkie]

I fancied one of these, but then I thought about how much flour costs, and how much yeast is, and how many hours of electricity the thing uses.

I reasoned its cheaper to buy bread.

...I hope you enjoy your 35p supermarket white plastic bread.

[Austin Allegro]

I fancied one of these, but then I thought about how much flour costs, and how much yeast is, and how many hours of electricity the thing uses.

I reasoned its cheaper to buy bread.

Not really, I worked out my loaves cost about 30p to make. I got a compact breadmaker on Amazon for about £20 (free delivery) and have been using it every other day for about four years. Takes about five minutes to put the ingredients in. The bread is of the type that would cost over a pound in the local bakers'.

NB I don't bother with the sugar and milk powder they say you need, it makes perfectly good bread without it. Also good for making cakes.

However, you don't need a machine to make bread. You don't even need to knead the dough - google 'artisan bread' which only requires mixing and setting.

[twatmangle]

Aren't bread makers the kind of gadget that gets a lot of initial use, then becomes too much of a chore (a bit like sandwhich toasters).

How dare you. They're fantastic.

[winkie]

How dare you. They're fantastic.

That is the only thing supermarket plastic bread is good for...a toasted cheese and onion toastie made in a good old sandwich toaster....

Going back to bread makers, you can get them to do all the mixing & kneading then take the dough out prove and bake yourself, you don't even need a tin, round it a bit and plonk it on a baking tray....

[sukuinage]

Another vote for the Panasonic 255 here. My 9 y.o. can put in the mix, set it going & you have tasty bread in 2 hours. For some reason bread is expensive in Germany so we've already saved the 70 odd Euro cost (Ebay). I keep meaning to make "proper" hand-made bread but laziness usually intervenes.

[izzy]

I bought the bottom-of-the-range Cookworks one from Argos. It's great. Takes about 2 mins to weigh out the ingredients. I usually set it to be ready for the morning. The bread is pretty decent and the results reliable. It's useful if you want to cut down on salt (I don't put any in) and add any seeds etc that you like.

[19 year mortgage 8itch]

I have one called Wife v1.0. So slow, takes a week or more to bake a loaf and the running costs are horrendous

[Olebrum]

The handy thing with them is you can add a delay, set the thing to go on after midnight with the Economy7 and

wake up to a freshly baked loaf done on half price electricity.

[Battenberg]

I'd have to disagree with you on that to an extent (not dissing good handmade bread in any sense). I've got a Panasonic SD 255 which is a fairly high end breadmaker and  the results are very good.

My main incentive of using it is that whilst I don't mind taking 3 hours to bake by hand which is good for some types of bread, other styles such as French or Sour Dough take a lot longer and personally I can't afford the time to hang around 6-7 hours making bread. The breadmaker is great in that regard as I just add the ingredients, set the programme and leave it.

BTW if you want to save on buying yeast, try out sour dough bread, here is a good guide:  http://www.io.com/~sjohn/sour.htm

I have the SD-253 and it's great. Not had any problems with it and often try different recipes in the book.