[Closed] Bread machines - what features are essential?

and do some do yoghurt too?

I'd buy a decent stand mixer to do the kneading and use the oven to bake rather than a stand alone bread making machine. More versatile, and it's nowhere near as difficult as you might think.

inconspicuity - once you've stopped using it, needs to blend in to stop you feeling guilty

I’d buy a decent stand mixer to do the kneading and use the oven to bake rather than a stand alone bread making machine. More versatile, and it’s nowhere near as difficult as you might think.

And...

inconspicuity – once you’ve stopped using it, needs to blend in to stop you feeling guilty

ah, I must be the contrary one then. Got a bread maker decades ago, m been through a few since then but in still nearly daily use depending on how many folk in the house. Not that fussed about dropping ingredients in, timing is good though. Panasonic ones have been good for us - especially latterly, must have a harder coating in the pan and the paddle.

We've a Panasonic - don't remember the model but it's at least eight years old so I doubt it is still in production - looking at Amazon I recognise the shape of the replacement bowl for the SD254 so probably that. Cost about £70 and has done two to three loaves a week since we got it. Occasionally do pizza and other doughs as well.

Something like the Panasonic SD-2500 seems to be the current version.

Features: I imagine they all do delayed baking, so put the ingredients in the bowl at night set the mode and timer and wake up to newly baked bread. Nut/raisin dispenser if you want that. That's about it really. Look at the variety of doughs it can handle, some can do gluten free some can't for example.

The fruit dropper feature is one I wish I had. It lobs in dried fruit or olive or whatever near the end and mixes them in rather than destroying them like it would if they were put in a the beginning.

My slightly old Panasonic (edit - same as whitstone's) is very good but the programming leaves a bit to be desired. It has a delay function but only available for certain breads so I can't come home to perfectly ready dough. There is a rapid bake mode that takes 3hrs but can't be delayed and a standard bake than takes 5hrs and can be delayed. I always seem to want a loaf ready in 4hrs - no can do.

Also - check what's the smallest loaf it can do. Smaller the better imo. In reality it only lasts 18-24hrs and the big sizes are just really tall and rubbish for toasting. Small loaves look like a normal loaf.

Panasonic

A friut and seed dropper is essential.

My Dad makes good date & walnut cakes in his. Think they tried making jam in it too. Don't bother with that.

i have made my own bread for years in the oven.  even if a stand mixer did the rising for me (does it?) i can't be arsed manipulating the dough, remembering to kneed it after an hour etc etc.

my folks have got one and i've made pretty good bread in it (tho what they make is a bit rubbish; too tall and empty) so i know what i'm getting myself into. it's not going to be left and forgotten about, especiallysince spelt loaves i like here cost €7!

so ok fruit/seed dropper sounds worthwhile, i do want to use seeds for sure, tho maybe they survive better than fruit in the mixing/kneedingprocess?

It's pretty easy to do the old fashioned way.

Make up the dough the night before. Bung it in the oven in the morning. It's quite robust stuff.

but i just said i have done it 'the old fashoined way' loads. it's not time i have to spare. and in the end it comes down to the oven more than anything else. i've made 'proper' bread in agas and stone bread ovens, as good as some loaves i can buy here in france. but with my electric oven it's just not happening. and i want the timing et of a bread machine.

i'm asking about bread machine's for fuxake! stop telling me how to make bread! : )

There is one problem with bread machines is that they are cereal not parallel so you can't make two loaves at once.

We be got a Panasonic SD2501 (the 2500 with the seed dropper). Had it about 7 years and is used on a weekly basis.

Never used the seed dropper but can see that some people might, we just buy flour with seeds in and that suits us.

We find the timer most useful to have bread ready over night.

We have two small children and they both love bread, with the machine we can at least pretend we know what they are eating!

Probably depends what you want to use it for but ours is great and wouldn't be without it.

Regarding timings. A standard loaf in the Panasonic is 4 hours, a quick loaf is 2 hours.

The 2 hour loaf is ok but not great, it's kind of an "emergency" loaf setting. We normally don't both and resort to Sainsburys if we're in that situation

This will download the Panasonic instructions/recipie book, it'll give you a feel for timing and what it can do (jam, cakes etc)

A friut and seed dropper is essential.

Especially if you load it with bacon and largish lumps of cheese. Oh yes

Get one that is easy to dust.

I've found the baking capabilities of even the worst oven in the world ever (Ikea Whirlpool thing) to be better than any breadmaker baked bread I've had.  I tend to use the bread maker to deal with the dough (mix, prove etc...) and I tip it onto a baking tray, shape a bit and get a much better loaf from the oven bake.

Which? say useful things are viewing window, alert when ready, quality paddle so it doesn't stick, delay setting, automatic dispenser and rapid bake. Their best buy is Panasonic SDZB-2502BXC (£160) followed by SD-ZX2522BXC (£240), neither of which have viewing windows.

I’ve found the baking capabilities of even the worst oven in the world ever (Ikea Whirlpool thing) to be better than any breadmaker baked bread I’ve had.

I find quite the opposite - my Kenwood bread maker makes perfect loaves time after time after time, far superior to oven baking them and much more convenient – especially being able to come down on a morning to the smell of freshly baked bread.

Get one that is easy to dust.

It's become clear as the thread progresses that people drop into 3 camps. Those that had/have one but seldom use it; people that would rather do the whole thing properly; and those that use it daily/weekly. I'm very definitely in the latter camp. I can and frequently have baked bread the proper way but it's just one step too far in terms of time to genuinely do it as my default method of generating bread. The bread machine is knocking out my alternative to bagged sliced from Tesco which I have not bought for years. I use it as many times as I would have bought a loaf of bread; maybe a bit more because I make small loaves and it also does pizza dough etc. It was about £100 I think new about 12 years ago so we must be down to pennies a loaf now. How does that compare to the cost per muffin of the average kitchenaid artisan mixer/kitchen 'statement piece'?

Horses for courses I guess.

well said covert, i'm planning to be in the same camp as you. except it'd be an alternative to actually pretty good, but not spelt of wholemeal, bread 12km away, rather than tescos sliced!

i have used the dough function and then an aga to bake.that was great, but again, i attribute that to the closed, not ventlated, therefore humid oven of the aga.

anyway, thanks for all the replies. i think i'm going to go for a fairly basic one without fruit dropper etc for ~ €60 and see how i get on. i'll try to glean what i can from pics about the paddle, viewing window etc.

we must be down to pennies a loaf now

I suspect you are cunningly neglecting to include the cost of the ingredients and the electricity to cook it in your TCO calculations. 🙂

Don't get me wrong, we used our bread maker a fair bit for a year or two and enjoyed it, but it definitely wasn't cheaper than buying bread from the shops, the results were very variable and it took up a lot of worktop room.

Eventually it was moved to The Shelf of Forgotten Things in the pantry, never to be seen again.

I suspect you are cunningly neglecting to include the cost of the ingredients and the electricity to cook it in your TCO calculations.

Not in the slightest - I'm not a complete idiot 🙂 . There is also the cost of the electricity. I suspect cheap shop bought bread does work cheaper. But I prefer our machine made version and there is not a lot in it. What I mean is in the pantheon of randomly used fad products bought for kitchens for us at least it is some way down the list of worst buys.

I think @convert is talking about the amortised cost of the machine itself. For us: 7 years averaging 2 uses a week is roughly 700 uses. The machine cost £70 IIRC which is 7000 pence so the cost is 10p/loaf.

Biggest ingredient cost is flour, we use wholemeal flour and it works out at about 50p/loaf. Overall I'd say the cost is between 70p-80p a loaf for everything including electricity.

You aren't (or shouldn't) be comparing the cost with the cheap sliced crap but with the better quality loaves.

Make sure it's square, means it'll take up less space at the back of the cupboard when you realise the bread is shite....

No way of making a decent crust, no point.

The fruit dropper feature is one I wish I had. It lobs in dried fruit or olive or whatever near the end and mixes them in rather than destroying them like it would if they were put in a the beginning.

Our Panasonic must be well over 10 years old now.  I liked the dropper but it didn't get a lot of use.  It's the first part of the machine that has broken (we did replace the paddle part at some point as I think all the non-stick had worn off it for some reason)

Construction material compatibility with dough is a must.

A REALLY sharp bread knife.  Fresh bread is a nightmare to slice if you don't have a decent knife.

Viewing window?  Why?  Are you going to stand and watch it rise?  If it doesn't rise, by the time you find out it's too late to do anything about it.

Nut amnd seed dispenser - I so desperately wanted one, then when my old machine (Costco cheapie) packed in and Amazon did a Panasonic for half price, I got one with the dropper.  i think I've used it (the dropper) twice.  But the Panasonic is still an excellent machine - reliable, consistent and the paddle has never got stuck in the bread

i personally don't give a damn about the cost.

i do, about being able to put bread on for next morning when you realise there isn't any at 9 o'clock at night, and the nearest shop is 10 miles away. and about being able to choose what goes in the bread, and about not having to spend much time getting it made when i've got a renovation to finish downstairs

when you realise there isn’t any at 9 o’clock at night, and the nearest shop is 10 miles away.

I'd be more worried about where my house and/or the Spar has suddenly gone. 😀

what features are essential?

Decibels. The fewer the better. Panasonics are barely audible (their only downside really is even the bleep that tells you its finished is a bit too quiet.) Had a Kenwood previously that made an absolute racket - the motor whined and grated and the pan rattled about.

Quiet machines give you a lot more options as you can make use of longer programmes and the timer to have them prepare stuff at night or happily work at home without the sound of grinding gears.

So long as you accept what they are then a good bread maker is really good. There are aspects of bread making you can't mimic with machine made bread but ... you can make really good examples of machine made bread. It won't be like home-made bread and it won't be like shop bought bread - it'll be something else, but it can be something else thats really good.

The benefits of the pananonic machines over others, apart from noise, is that the programmes are just much more reliable. They have a pause at the beginning of the programme where absolutely nothing happens for ages (enough to make you think its broken) which is basically allowing all the ingredients to arrive at the same temperature before they're mixed. So it doesn't matter how cold your tap water is or how hot your kitchen is, or whether you keep your butter in the fridge - when the machine starts mixing it starts with them all the same temp every time. And the result of that is you get much more consistent results.

The Kenwood I had previously would start mixing straight away - leaving it up to me to gauge what 'tepid' is for water and regardless of whether I had ice on the insides of the kitchen window. It was like rolling dice really, sometime the results were really good, but too often you'd get total failures.

all good info macruikskeen thanks a lot.

It won’t be like home-made bread and it won’t be like shop bought bread – it’ll be something else, but it can be something else thats really good.

agree with that. that's the idea

A REALLY sharp bread knife.  Fresh bread is a nightmare to slice if you don’t have a decent knife.

Electric knife ftw.

Electric knife ftw.

Normal, sharpened kitchen knife is even better.

I've got a Panasonic, it's not bad at making bread (bar the odd failure to rise) but I will admit it's fallen a bit into the "back of the shelf" category these days. I keep meaning to get it out and use it, but given the great bread you can get from the Lidl just down the road...

Anyway it has a delayed timer which is great (load it and set it before you go to bed, and get up to the smell of fresh bread throughout the house), a number of different settings for different types of bread, and no seed dropper. The small window on the top was only used the first time I made bread with it, since then it's completely unnecessary.

We went for a Panasonic after our no name one failed. If you get a brand name one then spares will be easier to source.

We use seeds all the time with no seed dropper. Would use it to make sundry tomato bread if we had it though