Thread: Bread maker - What is best.

That Breville sounds pretty good, in lieu of a Panasonic. We've had a Panasonic for more than 10yrs, and has been really good. I have replaced the paddle, which flogged out, and the bearing /seal assembly in the baking tin. The action is quite powerful, and creates a lot of stress on parts. They seemed dear at the time, for what they are, but then it extended the life of the machine.
Shame about them being discontinued, and I agree about the recent lack of bread mix choices. All pointing to a lack of demand...
We regularly make pizza base dough, focaccias, Indian style breads etc, and once a bread recipe is proved you can feel confident about adding other stuff. I made one recently with an egg and leftover porridge, which turned out great!

Cheers,

Thanks people.
As panasonic is no longer available I am looking at the Breville BB420.

Lots of good comments here but has anyone had bad experiences or given up using one.

Make sure you get one that has a decent sized bucket. Some of the smaller ones seem to end up all crust and very little loaf. As long as you buy a branded one i think you will be right. Watch out for sudden weight gain tho See if your machine has a quick bake setting on it. Some loaves take about 4 hours to make and sometimes you just need one asap cause visitors just rang up and said they will be there by lunch time Ours has a setting that will cook in about 2 hours.

donna

Gone and done it. Now the owner of a breville BB420 and some bags of bread mix.

Too late to try tonight but will try tomorrow. Got to get some strawberry jam and cream in.

Thanks for the help.
Dave..

LOL. u won't regret it mate. I bake 2-3 loaves a week, love the home made bread.

Does the Breville you bought have a jam setting for making jam?
Our Sunbeam Quantum Smart Bake has a jam setting. Nothing better than having home made fresh bread with home made jam. Making jam is so easy.
Also have the fruit and nut dispenser but must admit we don't use that facility.
Enjoy!

Lesson one... When using whole meal mix, use the whole meal setting on the bread maker, otherwise you make a brick.

Lesson two... When making a crusty white loaf, don't try to cut it up while is still hot.

Lesson three... People (kids) don't wait for bread to cool, neither did I.

Lesson four.. Make more bread than you think you will need as the termites seem to devour it faster than I can bake it.

Edit for The Sandpaper Man.
It has jam, dough, fruit nut, folding blade, and don't know what else yet.
Top of their line.

Latest update.
Using Laucke mixes in 5Kg packs. Very nice.
Love the crusty white and whole meal.

I add 2 tablespoons of ev olive oil to the mix and reduce the water by 10ml. Creates a lovely soft loaf.

Take the Crusty loaf mix and add 2 tbl spoons of brown sugar, 3 tsp of mixed spice and fill the nut hopper with mixed fruit. Cook on the "Sweet" setting.
Mouth waters...... Can not keep up with the family or self.....

As some one said, You can not go back to the shop bought stuff.
It is like eating a dish sponge after tasting home cooked bread.

Thanks for the help guys/gals.

David, I make fruit bread with 50/50 White/Wholemeal mix (Laucke) add 1-2 teaspoons Dutch Cinnamon and 150 gr Mixed Fruit or just Sultanas, lovely either fresh or toasted.

Wait till you make Foccacia or your own pizzas!

Just made a Buttermilk bread, recipe in [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Book-Bread-Machines/dp/0681020326/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213679811&sr=8-1"]this book[/ame], which is well worth getting. Got my copy from Angus & Robertson.

heres my wholemeal recipe, no packet ingredents. I make on average about 2 -3 loaves of bread a week.
100grams gluton flower
500grams wholemeal flower - (stone ground is great)
2 tbsp (tablespoon) milk powder
1/4tsp (teaspoon) salt
2 tbsp oil
400mls warm water
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp (slightly heaped) yeast.

Put the yeast into the baking bin first then mix the flower, gluton flower, salt & milk powder together & add on top of the yeast. ( don't mix yeast in with dry ingredents, for some reason the yeast doesn't activate as well & loaf doesn't rise as much)
Add the sugar to the warm water & stir well to partially dissolve the sugar.
Add the water/sugar to baking bin straight ontop of the flower mix.
Add the oil to the baking bin.
Bake on wholemeal setting, 1kg loaf with light crust.

The beauty with this recipe is that there is no preservatives at all but the down side to this is that the bread is only good for sandwiches for about 2-3 days then its best for toast. Not that it often lasts mush longer than that. lol
The gluton flower is needed to help the heavy wholemeal to rise well. U should get a nice light loaf that comes real close to filling the breadmaker infact sometimes it jams hard up against the lid. lol
You probably won't find gluton flower in supermarkets & no its def not the same as bread improver. That rubbish is packed with preservatives & chemicals. U'll prob find in at a healthfood or wholefood supply shop.

PS, u're prob gonna need a bigger toaster for this loaf. ROFL.

PPS for some reason every now & then this recipe will fail to rise as well as it should. I've never been been to figure out y even tho i've tried changing round just about all the ingredents.

We have a Sunbeam which works beautifully.

The following mix (wouldn't call it a recipe) never fails a beat for us:

3 cups Laucke crusty white bread mix
1 cup oats (either whole oats or quick oats .. the basic Coles or Safeway ones are fine)
1 tablespoon Lowan bread improver
1.5 teaspoon dried yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
Roughly 300 to 310 ml water

I say roughly as it may vary depending on the moisture content of the flour/air. I usually look at the dough as it mixes, and throw in more water or flour if it doesn't look quite right.

This gives a very light and fluffy white bread with a crispy crust - somehow the oats disappear, and you'd never know it had any, but we found that without the oats, the mix sometimes doesn't rise as well. Don't ask me why, so long as it works ....

Follow up on prior post.

I now bake Sun to Thur nights (5 nights) for fresh white bread for lunches.
Plus one fruit loaf and one whole meal per week.

Love it.

Another vote for Breville. We're on our second (wore out the 1st making bread several times a week for about 8 years.) When it bit the dust we had no hesitation getting a new Breville. Love the folding blade, it really makes a difference if you want to slice bread for sandwiches.

I'd recommend you pass on the mixes and use ingredients. Vastly superior loaf from any mix we tried, and only takes about 1 minute more to prepare.

I bake bread every day for our family (two adults, two primary school aged children)…we tried several bread machines and before finally trying then buying the Breville BB400 - the newer series models of this one are called BB410 and BB420. (I have used both the newer ones and they are fab also- BB410 only difference is the viewing light and the BB420 has a slightly larger pan but I still use the same recipe…the BB420 loaf is nearly exactly the regular shop bought bread size)
I find that putting a piece of cardboard over the viewing window helps the machine retain the heat and the crust is slightly smoother with the viewing window covered with a business card or similar
It’s top of the range machine but makes excellent bread everytime AND the loaf is horizontal more like a shop bought loaf of bread.
Our most used and successful recipe (I have loaned my machine several times while on holidays and converted friends who’s kids loveddd the bread - kids are the real test - if they won’t eat it you will obviously not be inspired to bake it)
Pizza dough in this machine comes out fabulous and since it has timer delay setting you can program simply to finish baking at a certain time in the morning….
290ml lukewarm water
2 teaspoons honey
Slurp of Olive Oil
Half Cup of Wholemeal Flour (Laucke available from Woolworths in various sized bags)
3 Cups of White Flour (Laucke from Woolworths)
1.5 teaspoons Yeast (comes included inside the Laucke Flour bags)
I set crust control to Dark and loaf size to 2lb.
The total baking time is 3.43hrs