Is my breadmaker rubbish or am I doing something wrong?

[mameulah]

I recently bought a second hand Panasonic breadmaker. I have tried two recipes, the basic and French bread. They both turned out tasting decidedly okay. Am I missing something?

tia

So you mean they were only OK but should have been much better?

We previously had two cheap no-name breadmakers and always got less than impressive results. For Christmas we got ourselves a new Panasonic and it's fab. The bread that works best is the basic white recipe, but French is also pretty good. Whole wheat is less impressive and takes an outrageously long time (over 5 hours). If your Panasonic is only producing OK bread but no better, perhaps the hook is dodgy or the motor is a bit weak or the heat setting doesn't function perfectly?

Thanks, I think I might try and bread mix recipe and see how that goes.

I had expected the bread to be delicious and smell divine. It looks homemade and has a funny texture. And it certainly doesn't taste delicious although I suppose it is edible.

Which model did you get? I had a Panasonic since about 1999 and wore it out last year, replacing it with another Panasonic... I noticed the recipes had changed in the new booklet, the cycles are longer and use less yeast which is a good thing. For the old one I had long started doing my own thing but the recipes in the new book are better...

What I am trying to say is: it's not just the machine that determines the result, it's also the recipe. And the ingredients.

Bread made with butter tastes nicer for example. Nice nutty wholemeal flour, sunflower seeds, substitute up to a quarter of the white flour with porridge oats... And do measure carefully, the flour to liquid ratio is the one thing where you need to follow you machine's original recipe until you have the confidence to adjust things.

Finally, what's your definition of delicious? You're not going to get authentic French baguette type bread... Do you do any bread making by hand? Then you might already have a delicious recipe that just needs adapting to your machine?

Thanks anja, the bread is no where near delicious. I wouldn't serve it to anyone and I am not hurry to make anymore. I thought I had bagged myself a second hand bargain. Doesnt look like it though. Quite disappointing!

Use the strongest flour you can find (highest protein content in nutrition listing). I find Waitrose Canadian the best by far. Also the yeast is important. I use butter or olive oil.

I only use my Panasonic on the basic white dough only...I then knock back and knead and put it in a loaf tin or make rolls. Don't like the bake from the machine. Also the longer the programme the better the bread. Don't give up, you just need to adjust things a little.

Snowden I do the same and use only the dough cycle. I leave the dough to rise in the machine for an hour or so after the cycle. Then knock it back and put it in a tin to rise again before it goes in the oven. I personally don't like the hole underneath where the mixing paddle goes.

mameulah are you using STRONG flour? The flour has to be fresh and within date too. Did you ensure that the yeast did not come into contact with the salt? And did you put the ingredients into the bucket in the correct order?

PS my machine makes fab pasta dough! It's a secondhand no-brand but adequate for my needs. Makes jam too!

Did you forget the salt? :) I have a Panasonic and, as well as the basic strong flour, water, yeast I also add a pinch of sugar, a good slug of oil or a big knob of butter, some milk powder and about a teaspoon of salt. I left the salt out once and it was decidedly 'meh'...

Not keen on the whole in the bottom either. Mostly I make rolls as I prefer to use spelt flour which isn't as high in gluten and therefore not as strong and the structure isn't quite as well developed, but it causes less tummy troubles.

Oh, I used low salt. Could that be the problem?

Packet of bread mix?

Yes, I know it's going against the whole home made bread thing but our bread machine has produced extremely variable results with flour and yeast, some have been ok but not nearly as nice as hand kneaded, oven cooked bread and some have been inedible. But with packets of bread mix - Lidl ciabatta or rye mix, and Wrights sunflower are favourites - we get great results every time, so we've accepted that for proper home made we make by hand, for convenience we use the packets. Still makes the house smell delicious and tastes several streets ahead if supermarket bread.

mameulah Oh, I used low salt. Could that be the problem?

Possibly. What is low salt please?

Salt is necessary in the alchemy that makes a loaf of bread - something to do with the yeast and the rising.

Did you reduce the amount of salt?

Ive just made this bread and bugger me its good,no knead and no breadmaker.It was even easier than using the breadmaker and so light and fluffy. It makes the BEST toast too :o

Cornmeal
5 cups (27 1/2 ounces) bread flour
4 1/2 teaspoons instant or rapid-rise yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt (fine/table salt)
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups whole milk, heated to 120°F
INSTRUCTIONS

Grease two 8½ by 4½-inch loaf pans and dust with the cornmeal. Combine the bread flour, yeast, sugar, salt, and baking soda in large bowl. Stir in the hot milk until thoroughly combined. Cover dough with greased plastic wrap (so it doesn’t stick to top of dough) and let rise in warm place for 30 minutes, or until dough is bubbly and has doubled in size.

Stir dough to deflate and divide between prepared loaf pans, pushing into corners with greased rubber spatula. (Pans should be about two-thirds full.) Cover pans with greased plastic and let dough rise in warm place until it reaches edge of pans, about 30 minutes. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 375°F.

Discard plastic and transfer pans to oven. Bake until bread is well browned and registers 200°F, about 30 minutes, rotating and switching pans halfway through baking. Turn bread out onto wire rack and let cool completely, about 1 hour. Slice and serve.

Definitely try real salt and put enough in next time.

"Also the longer the programme the better the bread." That's not been our experience, actually. We get really good results from the two-hour rapid white bread programme on a SD-2500.

That's unusual alpra. Everything I've read about bread suggests that the longer it proves the better it tastes, a relative makes bread on fast bake and I think it's bloody awful, it's like lead and my experience using fast bake on my Panasonic isn't much better.

I was rubbish with bread maker (a Panasonic). Never could get the hang of it, but I'm not a huge bread fan anyway. Store-bought is so much more convenient and worked out cheaper even for top quality. I think bread makers just aren't for everybody.