Went to put ours on tonight, inspired by this thread…
… bag of bread flour I thought was in the cupboard has been jettisoned. Oh well.
Haven't tried anything fancy yet but my fave so far is the basic quick
Have you found a great difference between regular and quick? I assumed there must be some downside/compromise to be had with a "quick" loaf otherwise you wouldn't have a slow option.
Have you found a great difference between regular and quick? I assumed there must be some downside/compromise to be had with a "quick" loaf otherwise you wouldn't have a slow option
Would have thought there would be some difference but damned if I notice any.
Have you found a great difference between regular and quick? I assumed there must be some downside/compromise to be had with a "quick" loaf otherwise you wouldn't have a slow option
Would have thought there would be some difference but damned if I notice any.
The normal program allows for a delayed start so is good for an overnight loaf and the smell of fresh bread in the morning.
The quick loaf, unsurprisingly doesn't have that option. My experience is that since it doesn't rest as long as the standard loaf before it starts mixing that I get better results if I use warmer water in the mix than I do for a standard loaf.
Inspired by this I've dusted ours off. Had to buy some new yeast. And then some new flour...
Programme 9 Rustic French later:
Next one out this lunchtime. Probably the best one yet (it's not like I've done loads, I think this is #4).
Quite a few people have suggested mixing white and wholemeal. The machine has programmes for both but not combined. How do you choose which setting to use?
(this is what the 'flour improver' evil additive is in shop bread btw).
Why is it evil? I was idly thinking of getting some.
For 50:50 I just use the wholemeal programme. I think thats what the recipe book for my breadmaker recommends as well.
It might not rise as much as a 100% white loaf but I prefer the taste and texture.
Second Loaf is in. Just read the ^ about the rapid setting. Although not sure 3 hours counts as rapid! Shall try that next time. Added XL water to a L loaf, see if it makes a difference.
Once you've all used up the small tins of Allinsons finest you could try some of this instant yeast which works really well and is a bit cheaper. Usually has a long shelf life too. They also do one that's engineered to cope with enriched doughs, my choice when making cinnamon or cardamon buns.
My contribution to all this: Fermipan Red yeast lasts forever (in the fridge) and works consistently/predictably. I keep the original pack in a bag (it gets everywhere once open) and decant a load into an Allinsons tub every now and then so it's easy to work with.
Not a great pic as it'd just be "de-tinned" at about 1030 last night. Definitely smaller and - on this mornings toasting experience - a little less dense. Still takes longer to toast that our normal wholemeal (which comes from the bakery and is apparently not entirely full of horrible preservatives). Taste tho- just the same and that's fine with me.
50/50 again.
Why is it evil?
It isn't, that's my point. People love to complain about evil megacorps putting nasty additives in the bread and calling it 'flour improver' but it's vitamin C.
In other news, I have long been irritated by the weird shaped loaves, and I realised this is because the tin has to be that size so the paddle mixes it. I solved this problem in my head by having two paddles. Turns out that many manufacturers have tried twin paddle bread makers and they haven't been successful. A Breville one turned up on local eBay so I bought it. I'll let you know how it goes.
It looks a lot better in the light 😉 Tastes great as well!
As regards settings for a 50/50 loaf, I just use the wholemeal setting whenever wholemeal flour gets involved. My vague memory is that most recipes for wholemeal loaves have some mix of white/wholemeal and I do know that when I’ve tried to do a 100% brown loaf every time it’s created punishment bread
Hmm. Two paddles in the tin sounds like a recipe for two 'lumps' of mixed dough, followed by a figure-of-eight shaped loaf. We'll be intrigued to hear what happens
@Alex a quick search reveals that Aldi's white flour is 11.5% protein which is good enough but a bit low. Things start to get a bit bolder at 12% though a touch more yeast may be required to gas it up properly in the machine.
@Cougar Loaf #1 is commonly known as a slipper!
@sandwich - good info thanks. We had planned to get some from the local farmers market next time and shall be checking out the %s. We've also got some pretty standard yeast as well, so shall check out if there's anything worth an upgrade.
I added more water to my mix so that the small sized loaf would not end up lopsided. This did work, but the bottom of the loaf got very heavy. Is this a consequence of the extra water? Or maybe the fact I used dark brown sugar?
@molgrips You may want to try some golden caster sugar, though usually sugar shouldn't be needed to get a good dough. Some of the "fun" is playing with flour, water and yeast additions to make it work. Then the next bag of flour needs another tweak to the recipe to make it all work.
XL, 3 hour "fast" bake, 50/50 standard recipie but with 15% more water. Best loaf yet. Smells amazing!
We've just "upgraded" our flour to a higher protein % for the next loaf. Still got the 7 boggo Aldi yeasts to use tho. Changing just one thing at once though is probably for the best in case it all goes wrong.
Fancied a cheesy loaf but the Panasonic recipe seemed a bit strange (using cubes of cheese!) so tried my own version. Just used the quick basic white loaf mix with olive oil in place of butter and chucked in ~75g grated strong cheddar. Menu 2 setting, small loaf size and it turned out rather nice, so good in fact I just had to make another. Freshly baked and still warm it's yummy with just loads of butter, day old and it makes fantastic toast.
Loaf#3 has passed the toast test with flying colours. Thanks for the steer on using more water. Seems about perfect.
We're now looking at expanding into something a bit different- tempted by @murdooverthehill description of a cheesy loaf.
Well, bloody hell. The Breville twin-paddle has arrived. The "whole wheat" recipe in the book is only 50% WW and 2tbsp of sugar so clearly I want to do better than that. The point of WW for me is to lower the GI and get more of the nutrients (and taste) so I don't want to pad it out with white. Not to worry - there's a custom programme. But what to put in the custom programme? They don't tell you what the built-in programmes do, so you can't take one of theirs and modify it. You're on your own, with up to 15 steps you can add.
Great, just what I needed, another rabbit hole.
Do I autolyze by putting in water and flour first, mix it, leave it for an hour or two then add the yeast? Or do I just add less yeast and sugar, and leave the first rise on cool for much longer so it can autolyze before fermentation kicks off? I suspect a shit-ton of flour will get wasted trying to figure this out.
Hooray, I think I can rejoin the thread; it looks like my problems were caused by the drive to the paddle being very stiff, meaning that it didn't take much extra resistance from the dough to stall the motor and prevent proper mixing / kneading. Cleaning 5 years of schmoo and corrosion out the bearing surfaces and greasing things up looks hopeful. So far one good loaf out of one attempt (with Wessex Mill's 6-seed bread flour).
@molgrips, my machine's recipies use the same program for 50/50 and for 25/75 mixes of white / wholemeal flour, so it would seem worth tyring a bit of a better ratio of flours without other cahanges. If it's any help, here are some basic details of the built in programs, 5 is the wholemeal cycle. Hopefully it can give you a starting point on setting up your own custom program?
Mols, I think most of your questions have been answered here already. If I were you I'd just pick the whole wheat programme and follow the recipe.
It's my understanding that the sugar is consumed by the yeast rather than you making sweet bread.
That's useful toby ta. And yes, my old machine had the same programme for 100 as for 50/50, but you added vitamin C to the 100. But, it was 5hrs in total not 4hrs like this new machine.
I had the drive paddle go very stiff on my bread maker so it wouldn't knead anymore. I'm afraid I didn't try cleaning and greasing the bearings but instead bought a complete new bottom bearing. Four screws made replacement easy and it's worked fine for a few years since.
Think I might have to try that cheesy loaf and just buy a larger size of trousers.
@molgrips - was 2tbsp of sugar a typo? Sees like a lot. FWIW I don’t use any sugar in my 60/40 white/wholemeal recipe and haven’t noticed a difference. You can probably start there if you’re wanting to change the recipe. I don’t know if it would change the GI much but I just leave it out because I’m lazy
was 2tbsp of sugar a typo? Sees like a lot.
No, and it does. That said the recipes in the book for this twin paddle job seem rather big. They are M/L/XL and Large has 700g of flour in it. But things are a bit different here. The two paddles seem to be mixing the dough better - they counter rotate so the they're pulling the edges of the lump in and this stretches the insides outwards all the time. And it's doing a lot of kneading - it's been running for ages, much longer than the old machine. Perhaps this accounts for the shorter bake time?
I stopped the bake of the unleavened bread cos I knew it would be a disaster so I binned it.
Uh oh. The bread has risen all the way up to the window, and I only did a L mix! This is a going to be a bruiser of a loaf. Toast for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch I think. Either it developed gluten really well or it's got a massive hole in the middle.
Exact yeast measurement does seem to be critical from my experience of four loaves.
It seems Panasonic has a <a href=" removed link " target="_blank" rel="noopener">factory outlet.
Whoops.
A YR2540 arrives next week. What do I need to know? Should I go stock up on strong bread flour? Bread mix for a foolproof first attempt?
Moreover, anyone have any favourite recipes they'd care to share?
Cheers.
Nice one — the YR2540 is a great choice! You’ll be surprised how easy it makes things once you get your first loaf right. Definitely grab some strong bread flour — it gives you that perfect chew and rise. I’d skip the pre-made mixes after your first couple of runs; doing it from scratch lets you tweak texture and crust to your liking.
One tip: don’t underestimate water temperature and resting time — those small changes make a big difference in crumb quality. I’ve been experimenting with a few variations and shared some notes and recipe tweaks here if you’re curious: <a class="decorated-link" href=" removed link " target="_new" rel="noopener" data-start="869" data-end="927"> removed link
Looking forward to hearing how your first bake turns out — nothing beats the smell of fresh bread filling the kitchen!
Well the twin paddle machine does seem to knead better, as the results were outstanding. No holes in the bread, perfect crumb and a really crispy delicious crust. The only problem is that the paddles seem firmly welded into the bread so removing them has cause a fair bit of destruction - twice, of course. I don't know why this would be - they seem to be made the same as the Panasonic one. It's possible that the recipe resulted in stickier dough or something - they seemed to be embedded in the thick crust.
At last.... a loaf with some colour! 👍
This morning's effort. Regular white but with "bread improver."
I'm trying really hard to get consistency and only changing one variable at a time. The temptation to go nuts is high.
What better to go with home-made bread than...
There is nothing tastier than home made malt loaf, still warm.
The recipe that I used about 20 years ago (with a bread maker) is long since lost. But I assume that Google would turn something up.
The holy trinity.
Home made bread, home made butter and (what's left of) my partner's home-made jam.
I wonder if Jerry and Margot would like some...
@gray I wouldn't recommend following St Delia's recipe, the couple I did were Dwarf Fighting breads!
GNU Terry Pratchet
Serendipity strikes! As I worked away at my dough this weekend I thought maybe now (this Christmas) is the time for me to finally succumb and get a breadmaker. I've been making my own by hand for nearly 15 years now, but frankly I can't be bothered these days.
So what models/ brands are good; and what features/ functions should I be looking for?
ETA: I generally just make standard 800g sandwich loaves, 2:1 or 3:1 white: wholemeal. I guess with a good machine I might be more inventive, but 90% of what we do is sandwiches and toast.
I think the stock answer is Panasonic and whichever model appeals. Mine is over 10 years old and still working flawlessly.
Medium loaf still produced a misshapen top - it seems you need a certain size to get it to rise evenly. I also tried 75% wholemeal with vitamin C but otherwise the same Breville recipe, and it was a bit better than the last machine but still very wholemealy and I'm not sure my family will go for it.
So what models/ brands are good; and what features/ functions should I be looking for?
The one I bought, obviously. 😁
Brand is easy, Panasonic. https://www.panasonic.com/uk/consumer/home-appliances-learn/home-appliances/breadmaker-comparison.html
To save you a degree of googling:
The PN100 is tiny. Unless you live on your own I wouldn't bother and even then, freezers exist.
The YR-model range isn't intuitive. It goes YR2510 ➡ YR2530 ➡ YR2550 ➡ YR2540.
The YR2540 and YR2550 both have yeast dispensers but other than that they are identical aside from the YR2540 having a Spelt setting (and being a nicer colour). Of all the more exotic flours, spelt sounds about the most interesting to me. Is that worth an extra £50 RRP over the YR2550, almost certainly not, but it's almost always on offer somewhere. I paid £160 for mine because it had a dented box.
The YR2530 is the same as the -50 only without the yeast dispenser. I've never tried using the machine without auto-yeast but it just seems like an extra step/faff to me, I don't want yeast potentially sitting in salty water overnight. YMMV. 🤷♂️
The YR2510 lacks programmes. It's that irritating model which in the manual says (* - not the YR2510) after every third feature. If you've no interest in going off piste and only ever intend on making 'plain' bread rather than being a bit more adventurous then it might be the one for you. Personally, I know full well I'd spend the rest of its ownership being Disproportionately Cross that I didn't buy a higher model, but that's just me. As RRP for the YR2510 is ten quid less than I paid for the top-of-the-range YR2540 it was a no-brainer.
Only STW could manage to conjure up complexity for making bread, even with a machine!
I’ve been making bread by hand for a while now, a very simple process but now with a shoulder injury I can’t knead. My wife has bought me the small, basic Panasonic (£110), and I’ve baked a white and a 50/50. Absolutely perfect! A lovely crust and soft inside, I followed the recipe but reduced the sugar and salt by half as they had given the same quantities that I used for a larger loaf. Substituted oil for butter.
Only a small loaf but perfect for two.
Only STW could manage to conjure up complexity for making bread, even with a machine!
The chemistry of bread making is enormously complicated. I mean, you can of course make simple bread, but if you want it a particular way, then you have to understand how it works, and that is not at all straightforward.
It all depends whether you have time and energy just to make things complicated!
I mean this in the nicest way but I sometimes wonder whether cyclists, particularly of the STW variety are detail obsessives?
I was considering an electric car and a coffee machine at one time (not combined, but what an invention) but the STW threads put me off.
I have made better bread with the machine than I made by hand using less energy, and I spread it with butter and jam. Lovely!
Life and time is too short for over complicating things!!
Cougar that bread butter and jam looks great. Are your middle of the night munchies because you have to find time somewhere to sort the pig in the poly tunnel?
Did you use the bread machine for the jam? The recipes for doing so seem to use added pectin which I've never tried. Probably need a jam making thread ...
As for which bread machine there are lots of older Panasonic ones on eBay etc. for not much money. My 15 year old one runs fine as does the even older but less used one my mum gave me as a 'spare'.
Neither of mine (253 and 257) have separate yeast dispensers but still make bread fine even on 12+ hour timer settings. Neither have a jam setting but both have a bake only setting. Both have nut/seed dispensers and it would be faff to have to return to the machine at the correct moment for seed additions without those (NB not used for most bread).
Did you use the bread machine for the jam? The recipes for doing so seem to use added pectin which I've never tried. Probably need a jam making thread ...
Apparently you can use the machine to make jam. I'm... kinda sceptical in that I'm not wholly sure that I see what benefit a machine would bring and I don't fancy cleaning it afterwards.
In any case, I didn't make the jam, my partner did (freshly picked fruit by her fair hand as well I think). The closest I've ever come to jam-making is lemon curd. I wouldn't know where to start with jam. Well, actually I would, it starts with 'g' and ends in 'oogle.'
As for which bread machine there are lots of older Panasonic ones on eBay etc. for not much money.
This is where I started this journey. I found that the cheap used machines looked like they'd been recovered from the frontline in WWII, and the holy grail of "unwanted gadget, used twice and then stuck in a cupboard for years" weren't much cheaper than new. That's ebay though, the climate may change week-on-week.
I mean this in the nicest way but I sometimes wonder whether cyclists, particularly of the STW variety are detail obsessives?
Yes, but you have to remember this is where people come when they are bored at work and their minds are wandering. So clearly it's going to be full of random thoughts and rabbit holes - at least for some people. And a lot of the people who keep coming back to an internet forum during a work day probably have ADHD which also means a world of rabbit holes.
Life and time is too short for over complicating things!!
Thanks for the criticism... it's good to be reminded that there's something wrong with me, I almost forgot for a while there.
It wasn’t intended to be a criticism of you @molgrips, just an observation of many threads on here and perhaps a reflection of my desire to keep things simple.
Hence my love for my fatbike and aversion to suspension!
And a lot of the people who keep coming back to an internet forum during a work day probably have ADHD which also means a world of rabbit holes.
Apropos of nothing,
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rRHSwqWl4dk
“I'm sure that will come as no shock.”
Very good!
Today's adventure, pizza.
Dough in the machine (I used 00 flour instead of the bread flour in the recipe), home-made garlic butter, home-made pizza sauce.
My dough-handling skills need work, but it tasted great.
Thanks very much for the pointers, and @Cougar for the detailed rundown of models! Sounds like a Panasonic 2550 or 2540 would be the best bet.
Dumb question (you can tell I'm new at this): is auto-yeast important? You'd've thought auto-liquid dispenser would make more sense - keep all the dry bits together and the liquid separate, and when it's time to mix, let the liquid into the dry bits.
The point, I think, is to keep the yeast and salt separate during the initial mix.
How "important" a dispenser is over simply putting the two at opposite ends of the tin I don't know, it could just be a gimmick. To my mind there's a logic in keeping my powder dry until it's required, which might be more relevant if you're setting it on a timer in the evening to start processing early morning. But that's something I just made up so... 🤷♂️
There is a technique called autolysing which involves mixing just the flour and water first and letting it sit, then proceeding with the other stuff, to get some sort of better loaf, it's not clear. It's controversial though.
I made some 50/50 last night but realised we didn't have any white bread flour, I used normal plain instead. To compensate I used vitamin C powder. Turns out not to have been such a good idea since despite making a medium recipe it's expanded to the size of an XL so still doesn't fit in the bread box. I'm going to have to buy another bread box.
Just tried the basic loaf with raisins, again using olive oil instead of butter, and added a teaspoon of ground cinnamon. Has to be the best yet. 😀 😀
........
The loaf with plain flour is quite tasty, possibly even fluffier than with bread flour.
Anyone got tips on reducing the paddle hole? The paddle is fairly battered and missing bits of it's coating. Will a new paddle help. Any other tips?
Picture of today's particularly bad hole.
A replacement paddle helped quite a bit when ours started doing that.
This is a handy guide, answers a few questions I had.
Coming on strong: choosing the best flour – Dan Lepard
Thanks, it was good. Needed more Stuff, I halved the amount of fruit specified and that was a mistake. It makes astounding toast though.