Come tell me about your breadmakers

[JustLikeBefore]

As above really.

I'm looking for a bread maker. I use to have one a few years ago, and I used it nearly daily until a paddle broke.

It was a 2bl one with two paddles. Most of the ones I see now, seem only to make little loaves with one paddle.
Is this enough for your family?

What makes do you recommend?

Thanks in Advance

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MNHQ

ginghamstarfish I hadn't thought about cake mixes TBH. is it specialist shorter setting then? is just the cake mix thing or do you find the bread better with the MR

not fussed about jam as I only make bramble jam which is piss easy to make in a pan.

I have a Panasonic too, it’s really good. Always does fab bread, the rustic French recipe is my favourite.

Oh and my Panasonic supposedly does jam and cakes - never actually tried it though

which Panasonic do you have Doublechocolatetiffin I'm intrigued about cake making in them now.

www.argos.co.uk/product/5652374

I'm getting this one tomorrow. It gets decent reviews on Amazon and if its rubbish I haven't spent a fortune.

plus I like the fact it does jam and cakes

I have a Panasonic, bought it 2 years ago for around £150 in Lakeland.

Mine has a separate paddle for rye bread, and a seed tray, to add pumpkin/sunflower seeds etc.

Things I make all the time are white loaf, wholemeal loaf, seeded loaf, rye loaf, pizza dough. A white loaf takes 4 hours, it has a timer so I set it for the morning and wake up to the smell if fresh bread. Pizza dough takes 45 minutes.

I was also going to recommend Panasonic.

Mine does cakes. They are nice, like pound cakes.

It depends on the particular make what it does.

Judging by your diagram, despite the profuse bleeding, you carried it upstairs to throw it out the window? Cool.

What a weird thing, I was just looking at breadmakers.

I used to have one but we decided that we didn't want to eat bread every day, and I've been making it by hand ever since but I just want it to take the hassle of the kneading out!

I am going to order one today for delivery tomorrow. I only want it to do the kneading.

A white loaf takes 4 hours, it has a timer so I set it for the morning and wake up to the smell if fresh bread.

Same here. My machine takes 5 hours for a standard loaf which is a big chunk of time to monitor. It is invaluable to have the delayed-start so it can sort itself to start cooking overnight and you wake up to job-done.

I've never cooked a cake in my machine. I don't want a loaf-shaped cake!

TinselAngel yeah I'm pretty hard me.

lots for Panasonic, a couple for MR and they are fairly cheat too. still leaning towards the Panasonic.

Sharing the love for a Panasonic bread maker. They are fabulous and I don't know anyone with a bread maker that isn't also a Panasonic. I don't use mine as regularly as I once did as there's just me, so one loaf a week tops (sometimes small, sometimes medium). But eight years old and still going strong. Brilliant.

Yes! I remember reading on MN someone saying that making bread by hand is so easy, she can't understand why anyone would buy a bread machine. But, I find the kneading and proving and timing everything such a hassle. I mostly just make dough in mine, then bake rolls in the oven.

really liking the idea of waking up to rhe smell of bread. I think my old one had a timer but I never looked at the instructions.

Adding that oddly enough I very often do a rapid loaf (1 hr 55 mins) and I actually prefer the taste and texture to that than the standard 4 hour loaf.

Actually, just bought a stand mixer, to do the kneading for me.

I've got the Panasonic sd254 and it gets regular use. I make bread, pizza dough and ciabatta dough in it. Dead easy to use and no failures yet.

Apart from human error when I omitted the paddle once but that was easily sorted.

Yep. Pansonics are the business, OP. Get the one with the seed dispenser. It is literally the best thing since sliced bread.

Thanks hebe was it sockpuppet who drew you to the thread or do you just love Panasonic's too

I'm just about to go argos to get the one I linked to up thread, which does do cakes too! but now I'm wavering as not sure it has a seed dispenser

Re the seed dispenser, if the machine doesn't have one, you can still make a seeded loaf you just add your seeds directly to the bread mix about half way through the cycle (the machine usually beeps to let you know it's time to add seeds). Mine does have a seed dispenser, which means that I can put seeds in the dispenser at the start of the cycle and then the machine releases the seeds halfway through the cycle, i.e. it saves me having to hang around waiting for the beep.

You can't add seeds to the mix at the start (i.e. without a dispenser) because they might damage the mixing paddle during the mixing process, especially larger seeds, almonds, walnuts etc. which will get crushed or scratch and mangle the paddle.

So you would be fine without the seed dispenser provided that you don't mind waiting to add seeds yourself halfway through the cycle, but if you want a seeded loaf on timer then you would need a dispenser.

I hope I'm making sense! When I purchased mine I was very lucky as I used birthday money so I felt I could purchase the highest spec model.

I bought the Panasonic sd2500, so no seed dispenser, but I'm sure I'll manage. As cherry has said.

I was a little impatient so cheated and did a bread mix bag. it's smells perfect and DC and me are just waiting for it to cool before we scoff the lot

Thanks everyone for your recommendations

I have a Panasonic, it is the absolute nuts.
Agree with whoever said about loaves baked using the rapid programme as well - great texture and I find they slice a lot easier as they are denser

Another vote here for Panasonic. Mine's 15 years old and still makes a perfect loaf every time.

I have a MorphyRichards that I bought from Very as they were giving me a discount on a certain amount of spend, so as I had been mulling over getting one this was the opportunity (it was the only make they offered BTW). It has one paddle; no seed dispenser but I have been getting Sainsbury's seeded bread mix; unfortunately it doesn't taste anything like as good as their bakery mixed seed loaf so am still buying that! The impetus for baking bread actually came from Morrisons discontinuing their absolutely lovely beetroot and apple loaf, so DD suggested I try making my own. Unfortunately it didn't taste like the Morrisons one but I have been having fun trying basic loaves and the various fancy bread mixes.