Breadmaker newbie - what have I done wrong? Help!

[SoFreshNSoClean]

Just did my first ever loaf in my shiny new Panasonic breadmaker.

Followed instructions exactly for a white loaf.

Ended up with a soggy loaf that is doughy in the middle and only has any discernible crust at the bottom.

Help!

Either you used far too much water in the mix or your breadmaker isn't heating up properly. Assuming you followed the recipe accurately and used 300ml-ish of water to about 1lb flour then my guess is that the heating element is faulty. If you want to risk having another go just to be sure that might not be a bad idea, but otherwise I would take it back and swap it for a replacement.

Was it a rapid white loaf or normal ? Give it another go. I tend to set it to crustier which gives an extra 5 mins on rapid (2 hours instead of 1:55) and one needs less water than the other.

I have a Panasonic one, and love it. Only time it has ever failed me in 7 years is when I did the "bake rapid" (1.5 hours ish) out of desperation. The normal 4-hour bake is always fine. Hope this is the problem! :)

i too have always had perfect loaves with mine - even with rapid. only time it went wrong was when i forgot to include the mixer element at the bottom.

agree - either wrong quantities or duff machine. or did you have it set on the wrong size loaf?

I had a few disasters to start with on mine,asked on moneysavng expert forums (hadn't found mumsnet then !) and the most common answer was be careful with the order of your ingredients. I've just put mine on 5 mins ago and did:

Sprinkle yeast round the bottom (3/4 tsp) (use the wee pink spoon that came with it)
Cover that with 14oz flour, roughly 1/2 and 1/2 brown and white (or all white if you prefer)
1 big end of pink spoon of sugar
1 big end of olive oil
A shoogle of salt!
290-300ml water on top

If 50% brown flour used I use setting 4, otherwise setting 1

Hope that is a help!

Btw sorry they all said that keeping yeast separate from "wet" ingredients was the thing!

If you're trying again, my recipe for a loaf is as follows. Settings are 'rapid', 'medium' sized, 'medium crust'

14oz (best quality you can afford) strong or extra strong bread flour
290ml water
1 tsp salt
1 sachet easy blend dried yeast for bread machines
1 tsp sugar
good knob of butter
(and a tablespoon of milk powder produces fluffy results)

If I've had problems in the past it's usually that the loaf fails to rise properly or it rises too much and sinks at the top (too much water). Once I left out the yeast and got a housebrick :) But it should always cook through. If it comes out undercooked and soggy again, then I think the heating element is not working properly.

This happened to me when I didn’t select the right size option for the loaf I was making. The machine was on XL size and my ingredients were for a M size. I now always check the size option showing on the machine very carefully.