Bread Makers

Joseph :

I received this breadmaker as a gift for Christmas 2008 and I LOVE it. I have never owned a breadmaker before so I cannot give you a side-by-side via experience. However, I can tell you that one of the things my Mother used to have trouble with timing the addition of fruits and nuts (gets distracted, misses the beeps, you may know this story…). This bread machine takes care of that because it has a little “drop in” tray that can be used when “fruit & nuts” are selected for any cycle (but you still have to remember to select…not 100% idiot proof I found through experience ).

Thus far, we have used it to make cinnamon rolls, pizza dough, sourdough bread, cinnamon-raisin bread and oatmeal-wheat bread with nuts. I am planning to get the caraway seeds and rye flower necessary for rye bread soon. I no longer buy bread at the store. All of the recipes have been out of the little book that comes with it thus far. It’s pretty simple…add ingredients in order, make a little hole for the yeast, select cycle (don’t forget fruit & nuts!) and go.

After reading other reviews that mention the pan jumping around I am a little concerned that this may become an issue. I have had this happen once before but I probably have 15-20 uses in at this point and everything seems to be okay.

Again I say…LOVE IT!

Kuo :

I’ve owned this machine for 2 years, and it’s always worked great. My bread comes out nicely every time. The instruction booklet provides an incredible amount of bread recipes, so if you just want to follow a recipe and get bread, the book is fantastically helpful. The recipes towards the back cater towards people with food alergies. If you want to experiment, look at R. Vancamp’s recommendations. I’ve made some phenomenal loafs of bread by adding in different breakfast cerials. It’s generally easy to clean by simply rinsing it out (with 1 exception; see below), most of the recipes are spot on, and it doesn’t walk across your counter while making your bread.

Of the minor complaints that I could come up with, the first unit that was sent to me broke when I received it; I plugged it in once, decided to move it somewhere else, and then plugged it in a second time - then it shorted & broke; I was fussing with the plug a bit reaching around the corner, so I likely had an intermittent connection or two while plugging it in that zapped the machine. I sent it back to the manufacturer, and they sent me back a fixed one. I’ve plugged it in and out many times since, without ever having the problem again, so it’s likely a fluke.

The other minor complaint I have comes from trying to clean the mixer paddle. If you haven’t made bread yet, you’ll find out quickly that fresh, hot bread turns into a crouton very quickly. Unfortunately for the breadmaker, this means that the mixer paddle gets bread-cemented onto its mixing post. So, removing the paddle for cleaning can sometimes be impossible…I sometimes turn a blind eye to it, and just leave it dirty.