Is a breadmaker worth the money?

[CoconutSty]

Just that really. Have no time to make my own by hand, but I'm so fed up of shop-bought in the plastic. Does anyone have a breadmaker they really rate??

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I’ve got one now. Recipes very welcome!

Where to get yeast though? Someone mentioned Tesco upthread but I’m not sure.

@Shoss pls tell me more about your spelt and GF loaves. I have a sensitivity to gluten and am thinking of making my own bread.

Are they tasty? Have you a preferred recipe?

@mintbiscuit the spelt loaves are one of my favourites, using half white spelt flour and half wholemeal spelt flour. Spelt isn't gluten free though.

I had some astounding failures making gluten free loaves at first: barely rising and tasting like sponge cake with no sugar in. My most successful ones used Doves Farm/Freee gluten free white bread flour and the gluten free recipe in my breadmaker's manual. It rose quite well and didn't crumble badly like some supermarket gluten free loaves.

Given my own failures, I'd be hesitant to recommend a breadmaker for only gluten free loaves because it's a lot of money if you end up with a lot of duds like my early attempts. That said, I'm not the most talented baker.

The website www.freee-foods.co.uk has a gluten free recipe section that's quite good if you wanted to try hand baking bread while you thought about buying a breadmaker. They're the people I get all my gluten free flour from.

If anyone else has tried making gluten free bread in a breadmaker I'd be really interested to know how that went. Tips and tricks always welcome!

Where does everyone source their fresh yeast from? And can you use it in a bread maker?

I've been making my own bread to cut down UPF but notice the dried yeast still has some processed ingredients so would like to switch to fresh. I haven't got a bread maker yet and make it the old fashioned way but thinking of getting one in case I get tempted to slip back to the convenience of shop bread.

Someone on another UPF thread mentioned Bioreal yeast as being instant but emulsifier free - that said,
yeast additives are a tiny proportion of the finished loaf so don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good!

I’ve discovered a website called Bakery Bits that sells Bioreal fresh yeast. No additives and organic.

Can anyone help me identify what is the newest model of the Panasonic? There seem to be all sorts of models and feature and prices about. I have Amazon vouchers which I could use towards it.

Your best bet is to look and see what somewhere like john Lewis is offering. They have a wider variety, these days, with options of a yeast dispenser, nut dispenser and so on.

I got the morphy richards fast bake. Couldn’t find a second hand Panasonic. It’s great! It’s so easy to use. I just use normal fast yeast, I’m not worried about a bit of UPF

Going against the grain. I had a bread maker for a couple of years and sold it on ebay.

We actually did eat a lot of home made, especially rolls and pizza dough, but given you have to take it out anyway to shape/prove it ended up just being like a massive mixer which took up shitloads of space

So I used a mixer with dough hooks and it was no more time consuming.

The bread made overnight was usually a disaster as several times it didn’t rise even though I made it exactly the same as the bread I made during the day.

And then there’s the hole left at the bottom where the paddle is.

All in all I can see the attraction, but they are a bit of a gimmick when it’s no harder to make bread in a mixer and put it in a loaf tin, and leaves a lot of space free in your kitchen.

"The bread made overnight was usually a disaster as several times it didn’t rise even though I made it exactly the same as the bread I made during the day."

Did you use sachets of yeast ? I've used yeast not sold in smaller sachets but in a small tin where you scoop out what you need and also had very inconsistent results. Back to the sachets and no problem. The loaves out of my Panasonic are unmatched by the shop bread pans.

The only time I had a problem with the tins of yeast was during the pandemic when there was a shortage of the stuff.

Never had a problem with overnight loaves. If anything they have been better for all the soaking.

I wonder if overnight loaves are different because the water cools down. My kitchen is freezing in winter so that wouldn’t be any good.

I like the fact that I can leave the bread mixer on while I do stuff like collect the kids. I couldn’t do that with mixer and the oven.

I use the yeast sachets as I don't use my bread maker much, if you use it a lot the tins are better value

The tins need keeping in the fridge and don't last so long once opened so for irregular use sachets are better