panasonic beadmaker SD257 owners tell me how great it is?

[mothersmilk]

we have some spare cash at the mo and iv always wanted one dh says get one but wants to know why this ine is soooo great can all you wonderfull ladies tell him...
we a family of five with three growing kids and iv told him we will save lots of money

not sure if min's an sd257, but its def panasonic. there was a thread a while ago about them. i use mine to make bread obviously, especially when i can't be bothered to go to the shop (my husband still prefers cut sliced white i'm afraid yuk). kids eat it fresh without butter. lovely smell in morning if you do it overnight. pitza, nan bread, fruit loaf, sundried tomato loaf also good. also franchetta - is it? the italian flattish bread with rosemary and cheese on top.

if you look at the ingredients on a shop bought loaf they are gross. not sure if it saves money. it is very easy to do.

get a decent one like this. my mum had a cheap one that made gross bread

Is it the one with the nut dispensing automatic thing? If so can say am very pleased with mine. The only bad thing is I keep losing the book it came with and wish there was a downloadable version online.

yep one with the nut dispensor

I have the one without the nut dispenser, I think everything else is the same though, you just have to add nuts/raisins manually (it beeps to tell you when).

I love this machine, it makes gorgeous bread! My children love it, they will eat many different breads (brown, seeded, stuff they wouldn't touch from a shop) too just because I made it for them

Tesco do a cheap white bread flour (about 70p for 1.5kg or something like that) and it makes the most lovely springy bread and you get about 3 loaves from that pack! Their wholemeal flour is great too and there are so many different bread mixes/flours to try.

I had a bread maker years ago which DH hated the bread from but even he loves this one, he says it tastes as good as the bread from ASDA (his personal favourite bread)

The timer function is great, fresh bread in the morning! And there's a fast bake setting which will bake a loaf in 2 hours, this works best with packet mixes - great if you forget to put it on at night

MitchyInge: I found a manual for the SD-255 at safemanuals.com. The SD-257 is the 2010 update of the SD-255, which has been winning most of the "best breadmaker" awards for the past few years.

The current Panasonic breadmakers are the SD-257 and the SD-256 (same thing without the nut and raisin dispenser). They're minor upgrades on the previous models, the SD-255 and the SD-254 (same thing without the nut and raisin dispenser). These in turn replaced the SD-253 and SD-252 (can you guess the difference?).

The current models have a "more non-stick" pan, but it's a minor difference.

Mine works really well. If you use "bread mix", it takes about as much effort as unwrapping a supermarket-bought loaf. I did a video showing how it works which you can find by looking for "SD-257" on YouTube. That's me in the red top.

Just to get the smell of bread baking is worth getting one for.

I have a panasonic - bought two and a half years ago. Think it's great. Benefits for me:

• I Shop weekly, so shop bread goes stale. The bread maker means that fresh bread is always available. If it's a rough week, and we're down to 'leftovers soup' for dinner, it's amazing how much more special it feels with fresh bread

• entertaining. It looks like you've made an effort. in particular, I'll sometimes just make dough, and then bake it in the oven with toppings like a foccacia. You need a lot of olive oil, and then I've used: Rosemary and sea slat; chickpeas and coriander; sun dried tomato; slow roast onions. You literally dump the dough onto a baking tray lined with oiled baking paper, and then press the topping in with your hands, spreading out the dough. Also garlic bread, the same way

• kids like to make pizza with the dough. It occupies them well - like edible play dough- and it's lunch sorted too.

I use tesco bread mixes ( or the lido sunflower seed bread mix) so maybe miss the point of 'knowing exactly what goes into it- but it's easy and practical for my busy family, When my children are bigger, I intend to start trying makinng it without the packet mix.

Thank you cherryhinton (are you in/from cherry hinton?) :)

i already had a cheep breadmaker (from freecyle)...
it worked well but i always wanted that Panasonic one

Anyway in September OH bought me one for my birthday.
Its FAB... (much better than the boring bread maker)
I use it all the time (I dont ever buy bread), so it is used about 4 times a week.

It has a sandwich loaf setting which is fab as the crusts are really soft.
The nust dispenser is fab, i always put 2tbsp of sunflower seeds into my wholemeal loaf (which is my loaf of choice), ar use it for poppy seeds in a white loaf.

I have brioche in it (yum, and treat for sunday breakfast) and only ever make pizza's as well, so i make pizza dough in it. (tip = put some herbs in with the flour makes the dough extra yummy)

you can do 3 sizes of bread, M, L, XL, (i always do medium, which is big enough to last 2 of us for 2 days)

the timers is fab, and the paddle comes out so much more easily than it did in my old machine.

You ca use it to make gluten free bread, and in fact almsot any type of bread.

You can make cakes in it, or just dough so you can shape your own rolls.

Its a fab machine and worth every penny

hope that convinces your DH!)

thanks all some great reasons