Kitchen Machine/Bread Maker

[araminem]

SO, based on another thread on hear about 17 year olds eating you out of house and home, I thought I should probably start getting prepared (even if DS is only 1)! Alot of the recommendations on there suggested baking bread or cakes. At the moment when I bake bread or make a cake I do it manually. We only have a hand held blender and have never owned a kitchen machine.

So what kitchen machine/bread maker would you recommend? And why?

I am thinking a kitchen machine would be more versatile, so one machine does more stuff, but then I am not even sure what the difference is!

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MNHQ

We have a Panasonic. The 2501, I think, which is great. I used to bake my own bread by hand (also have a Kenwood Chef). It's not difficult, or even particularly time consuming, but it was the timings that I found really fiddly - thinking ahead to when I needed the bread.

With the Panasonic I can put all the ingredients in any time I want, and set it so that it's ready for a particular time. The bread is pretty decent too, with lots of options for different types of flour, although I need to experiment a bit more.

You can also make cake in it apparently, although I haven't tried that yet.

We also have a Panasonic. Have had it for about 9 years and have only made bread in it, but it's wonderful bread. It's been sooooo worth the investment

I had a Panasonic breadmaker, not sure which one but it may have been the same range as ghost's. I had the one with the raisin /nut dispenser & a timer. I loved it, used it at least once every week for the best part of a decade. Was lovely coming down in the morning to fresh bread. Gutted when the plastic around the lid finally became charred & I was afraid to use it for baking any more - I still kept it for another year though, & we just mixed dough in it for pizza & oven-baked bread.

I got a Kenwood chef last autumn & while it's not as handy for bread (in that you have to decide when to knock it back, put in the oven yourself etc) it's more convenient for lots of kitchen jobs. I made a massive batch of cookies for work this week - it took about 3 minutes to mix a batch big enough for 50 cookies. From past experience, mixing that lot by hand takes a hell of a lot of work.

3 top picks are Panasonic breadmaker (always the best), a Kenwood Chef and/or a food processor depending on the type of cooking you do. I have all 3 and use the breadmaker every day and the Kenwood and the food processor perhaps once a week each.

I've had a kenwood for years- it's used weekly and a generally useful tool. Though o don't use it as much as I intended / insisted I would when I got it.

I have a cheap morphy Richards fastbake bread maker (it was £35 on Amazon) and it's used daily. Sometimes twice a day. I'd happily chop, mix, and bake cakes by hand if I had to choose between the two as the bread maker would have to stay. Though I am hoping the thing will break soon so I can get a posh Panasonic upgrade.

I have had my current Panasonic bread maker for several years, and its predecessor also a Panasonic lasted more than 10 years and only got replaced because I decided it was time for an update.
I use it every day, never buy bread now, on occasion specialised things like pitta, croissants or baguette. The bread programmes take between 2 and 5 hours depending on style and you have the timer function to extend that so it's ready when you get up or come home from work for example. The advantage over manual (or with kitchen machine) breadmaking it that you can leave it unattended.
You need to plan for it to sit out on the worktop at all times though.

I bake a lot of cakes too and I also have a hand held mixer (the type with two beaters) and for my purposes that's enough. I would also not have the space for a bigger machine.

I gave away out Kenwood breadmaker. Made excellent bread but it was the wrong kind of bread - too fiddly to slice nicely for sandwiches and bigger loaves are just taller, not bigger all round as the tin doesn't get bigger. Also if the (small) paddle gets stuck in the wrong place you get a big hole in your loaf.

I do have a Kenwood Chef which is ace and used weekly for dough for pizza etc.

I had a bread machine and the bread was never quite right and always had a massive hole in the bottom where the mixer thingy came out in the bread. Got rid of that. Now have a kmix (did want a kitchenaid but funds wouldn't stretch and the kmix was on special offer) and I love it for breads, pizza dough , cakes, meringues - would still love the convenience of a breadmaker - stick the ingredients in forget about it until it is done - but would need to find one that didn't leave a massive hole in my bread! Any recommendations welcome!!

I love my bread maker. I find the hole from the paddle a small price to pay for effort free fresh bread whenever I want it. I've made chocolate bread, banana bread, cinnamon & raisin bread, foccacia, pizza bases, English muffins, cheese bread, rolls.... Loads of different types.

Mine is an ancient Panasonic that I was given by my parents as they didn't like the bread it made and my dad preferred to make it by hand.

So Panasonic sounds like a big hit. And does this mean people would choose a bread maker over a kitchen machine? (Not sure what the difference between ken wood chef and normal ken wood/kitchen machine is)

I think they are very different things.

A bread maker will basically make bread, a mixer will do many things.
A bread maker will present you with a loaf at the end, a mixer requires your input throughout the process.

I have the bread maker and I also have things like a hand held mixer (stick blender with whisk and mixing attachments) and a food processor. For cakes I either get the food processor out or use the hand mixer.

Hmm. SO maybe a mixer is more versatile and I should start there? I only have the stick blender with whisk and chopping attachment. I would say I would need the machine to make bread and cakes etc equally. And I am not too fussed about transferring the bread to the oven.

Another vote for a Panasonic breadmaker - I also have the one with nut/seed dispenser. It's brilliant - I've had bread made by other makes and it's not as good, Panasonic are great though.

Ps I don't work for them, it just sounds like I do!

It's incredibly easy and much nicer to make bread without a bread maker- honestly!

I would buy a freestanding mixer. A Kitchenaid or similar.

SO I must admit I have had bread from a breadmaker once, and was not impressed. But that might have been the recipe more than anything.

But I have found a kitchen machine/mixer person! Which one would you recommend? Or maybe I should start a new thread?

Twolittleblooms - where did you get your basic Kmix bread recipes from? I bought one just before Xmas and don't really know where to start with bread making. Any tips would be really appreciated.

OP - apologies for the hijack above. I have a Panasonic bread maker which is brilliant BUT only makes bread in reality. The Panasonic is vastly superior to any other breadmakers I have tried and def worth the extra money (I got mine secondhand from eBay) . I also have a Kenwood Kmix which is great for cakes, whipping cream etc and all sorts in fairly big quantities. Unfortunately I am yet to know what to do with the Kmix with regards bread making so haven't tried that yet.

If you don't kind transferring the dish to the oven and can be around for the various rising etc then I think a stand mixer would be the best option as it is a lot more versatile. Great for mashed potato too!

As soon as you realize that you can raise bread slowly in the fridge either overnight or during the day while you're out, the need for a bread maker vanishes.

the need for a bread maker vanishes.

Unless it can magically turn itself from raw ingredients to fully baked loaf with no further input from me then that's simply not true.

Sorry. Nearly vanishes.

I reckon it takes about 10 minutes actual activity to make a loaf of bread from scratch.

Nope, I disagree. And I've made bread by hand (well in a mixer), proving it in the fridge. You still have to get it up to temperature, before baking, heat the oven up, shape it etc etc.

It's not particularly hard (or time consuming), but it does require a certain level of organisation and planning ahead, that is not inconsiderable.

Whereas, it takes me 5 minutes to chuck together the ingredients and set the machine to have the bread ready for 7am tomorrow morning.

Out of interest, I stopwatched the loaf of bread I've just taken out of the oven.

I was actively involved for 7 minutes 35 seconds. The whole process took 3 hours 7 minutes and 35 seconds.

Obviously I had to be home to do it like that. But if I had been out all day, I would have made the dough (4 minutes 30 seconds) and put it in the fridge this morning. Then another 3 minutes active involvement and 1hour 30 minutes rising and baking when I got home. And it really is significantly nicer than bread machine bread.

Can you share the steps and timings for your bread over the course of the day?
Also, how long does it table for the fridge sought to come back to temp before you can put it in the oven?
Thanks

Sure. This is the loaf I usually make- it's good for sandwiches and it has a thin crust and a soft crumb that children like.

500g strong flour, 7g yeast, 10g salt, 330g milk (or water, but milk makes a softer loaf) 20g softened butter, 15g runny honey.
Mix together with a wooden spoon to make a soft dough- fold it over in the bowl a few times with your hands until it forms a blob. That all takes 5 minutes. If you have more time, you can knead it for a bit, but not really necessary.

Cover bowl with cling film, then either put it in the fridge for the day (or night) or in a warmish place for two hours until doubled in size.

When it (and you) are ready, tip it out onto a floured surface, stretch it out and fold a couple of times and put it into a 2lb (900g) loaf tin. 3 minutesish.

Leave it for an hour in a warmish place until it doubles in size again. Preheat the oven to 240, with a baking sheet in it. Bake the bread for 30 minutes. If you like, CAREFULLY chuck a cup of water onto the floor of the oven after you've put the bread in- the steam makes for a better bake. But really be careful- the steam can be a bit dramatic.