Breadmakers....

[Magick1]

Does anyone have one of these?

What do you like about them, what do you hate about them and what brand do you have.

Thanks.

[lynnzop[$]]

I used mine a lot when I first got it. Now it's taking up room in a cupboard and even though I look at it every day, I forget to get rid of it!

The only thing I didn't like was that eventually, whatever was lining the pan and keeping the bread from sticking didn't work. So I quit using it, because it wouldn't rise properly, the loaves wouldn't come out unless you hacked at them, and it was a general PITA.

I loved coming home to the smell of fresh bread though...and there were so many different flavors of pre-mixes that you could just pop in, set the timer and have fresh bread...yummy. It's not at the top of my list to get another one, but I wouldn't return it if someone got me one as a gift, LOL.

[taurusmoon]

lynnzop said

It's not at the top of my list to get another one, but I wouldn't return it if someone got me one as a gift, LOL.

I'm sorry I didn't get your name in the crap exchange. Mine was in great working condition.

[lynnzop[$]]

LOL, I'm still waiting for my crap!

[jgibson2[$]]

Magick1 said

Does anyone have one of these?

What do you like about them, what do you hate about them and what brand do you have.

Thanks.

I have a stand mixer with dough hooks. Much more versatile, although you can't 'set and forget' like you can with a bread maker. OTOH, I can make 4 loaves at once if I want. Try that in your bread maker.

[pluckyduck]

A bread thread! I am so excited to dig this up.




I was a total and complete novice when I bought my first bread maker two years ago. I love it and I love making bread. I decided to go for a really good one, first time out, and I think it made the difference in me sticking with the hobby and learning about it.

Zojuirushi Home Bakery Supreme


I swear by it. I loves it. It loves me. It's a beautiful relationship!

There's nothing you can't do with it. Some of the more advanced stuff, you learn how to do the first steps in the bread maker and the rest outside, but it takes you all the way from beginner to expert, not that I'm at expert yet but...I haz made my own whole grain hamburger rolls, ya know. [pats fluffy curly hair]


edit P.S. If you buy a bread maker, let me or somebody else walk you through at least the first few loaves. The first loaf fails, it just does. I cried.

A lot of people give up after a couple of loaves. There are bread makers across the country sitting lonely and idle for no good reason. Poor lonely bread makers.

[pluckyduck]

jgibson2 said

OTOH, I can make 4 loaves at once if I want. Try that in your bread maker.

Ha, you got me there.

I was hanging out with some bread making types at one point, and there was the Stand Mixer Devotees and the Bread Maker Devotees. The Stand Mixer Devotees were *definitely* cooler.

I also have a stand mixer with dough hooks that I've never used. I've been tempted when I needed to bake a few loaves or bunches of rolls at one time to share with others. The hassle of converting a tried and true recipe that worked perfectly in 2LB machine to greater quantity at one time stopped me. It was much less risky to run the machine a few times instead.

I "stand" (ha) by the bread maker as an entry point, though, if nothing else. You graduate from stone cold simple = flour + fat + yeast + sweetener + water = bread, to sky's the limit.

Still, the stand mixer folks are cooler.

[Magick1]

I have a stand mixer, but have been afraid to really break it out and use it for anything like this.

I am just not talented in the kitchen, truly! I want to try to make healthier breads for my family, but just don't know where to start and my b-day's coming up. MIL gave me essentially a gift certificate to use for $150 for me to buy my own gift.

I have thought about purchasing a bread maker for years. DH poo-pooed me all of this time thinking I would never use it.

But, I am and have always been drawn to them for some reason. The little Susie homemaker feeling keeps washing over me and I try to quash it, but it doesn't work.

[pluckyduck]

Magick1 said

I have a stand mixer, but have been afraid to really break it out and use it for anything like this.

I am just not talented in the kitchen, truly! I want to try to make healthier breads for my family, but just don't know where to start and my b-day's coming up. MIL gave me essentially a gift certificate to use for $150 for me to buy my own gift.

I have thought about purchasing a bread maker for years. DH poo-pooed me all of this time thinking I would never use it.

But, I am and have always been drawn to them for some reason. The little Susie homemaker feeling keeps washing over me and I try to quash it, but it doesn't work.

Exactly the same for me. I wanted one for years, but the DH made such fun of me, I was afraid to try.

It's completely *valid* that I have started all kinds of things in my life and not finished, but you know, I wanted to do this anyway. [stomps foot] Finally one day I just bought one, and endured the "you bought what, honey, you know this is just going to be an expensive paperweight" commentary.

The shocking thing to all is that, ha, I love it and I use it and we gets good stuff. I think that "not proving teh husband right" got me through my first failures. (I don't mean to make this sound hard, it's not, but you do have to have patience with yourself if you want to learn how to do some of the more fun things.)

[conradd]

I have both a stand mixer and a breadmaker and I use them both.

The stand mixer is great for large quantities, as Judy said, but there aren't that many times when I bake 4 loaves of bread at one time. I use it constantly though, for cookies, cakes, and things that wouldn't work in a breadmaker. At Christmas, when I'm making mass quantities of sweet rolls to deliver to family & friends for Christmas morning breakfast, it's wonderful.

My Panasonic bread maker, going on ten years now, is wonderful for mixing dough. I usually bake my loaves in the oven, but I can set it to have the dough ready in the late afternoon so that we can have fresh bread for dinner. I can have cinnamon roll dough ready when I get up in the morning and the men in my life think I'm wonderful when I put a pan of Cinnabon clones on the table. Pizza dough is a snap.

They're both essential to me but for different reasons. And, the next breadmaker I buy will be a Zojuiwhatever - I'm lusting after Andrea's picture.

[pluckyduck]

Cinnamon buns!

Deb, I have been threatening to make those Cinnabon clones for two years, have not done it. I'm going to do it this weekend, yes, yes I am. I have Cinnamon I bought just for it, and I really need to use it before it loses its flavor. (edit: I didn't buy the cinnamon two years ago, gack, but I did buy it at least a couple months back.)

Okay, back to bread.

I started out stone cold stupid, so I probably had more ramp up than the average bear. I started out "b-r-e-a-d flour? I thought flour was flour. What do they mean b-r-e-a-d flour?" Or, "yeast, okay, that's the stuff in the little packets. Why are there so many different kinds and colored labels? Isn't yeast just yeast?"

Wasn't I cute?

Point is, once I figured out what I needed, and accumulated the supplies on hand (stored in teh freezer for max freshness! ; ), making a good loaf of Honey Wheat Oatmeal bread in the breadmaker, all the way, became not even 10 minutes of work to good eating bread.

Today's bread below, yum, not even 10 minutes investment and a house that smells like heaven. ** Loaves baked in the breadmaker look a little funny** If you want a pretty loaf, you need to bake it outside, I just didn't feel like today...and I didn't have to. Besides, the loaf has been nearly devoured already and my men folk didn't complain that it could have been prettier.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

I'm still wondering why you need to have either a stand mixer or a breadmaker - can't you make bread without new appliances? - and here you tell me there's different flours and yeasts?

[pluckyduck]

mjfrombuffalo said

I'm still wondering why you need to have either a stand mixer or a breadmaker - can't you make bread without new appliances? - and here you tell me there's different flours and yeasts?

Ha.

Yeah, I think people baked bread before bread makers and stand mixers came about.

The *coolest* way to bake bread is with a starter or sponge. That's how they used to do it them thar olden days. One of these days I'm going to get on a tear for a few weeks and get some good sponges going on. One of these days.

There are tons of reasons to use appliances. Making bread without them takes a good bit more time and is physically tiring. (personally, I couldn't do it, as in, I just plain couldn't do it.) The appliances give you a better shot of being successful, unless you are a true bread expert (most of whom have died off with our grandmothers). If you want to make bread *regularly*, as in make your family's bread and not buy store bought, your chances of sticking to it are greater with some appliance help.

re: flours and yeasts, oh my, the types of flours go on and on and on and on......it's fun!

[conradd]

mjfrombuffalo said

I'm still wondering why you need to have either a stand mixer or a breadmaker - can't you make bread without new appliances? - and here you tell me there's different flours and yeasts?

Well yes, and you can also wash clothes without a washing machine - just find a wash tub and wash board. There is something to be said for mixing up a batch of bread by hand - my grandmother certainly did as she baked for a family of ten children, but I'm more interested in the final product than exhausting myself in the process. Being able to dump all the ingredients in a bread machine, set it to have dough ready at 6:00, and sleeping peacefully all night is far more appealing than spending an hour mixing ingredients and cleaning up, then getting up to punch down the dough at 2:00 and 4:00.


Same for setting a breadmaker to have bread ready when I get home from work to go with dinner. Bread has to be attended to - the temperature has to be right, and there are variables that cause a recipe to take 2 hours before it's doubled in size one day, to take 3 hours a week or so later. Bread isn't always predictable, and that's fine on a lazy Sunday when I have nothing else to do. Most days, I do, and that's where a bread machine comes in very handy. It controls the process so that I don't have to.

[Magick1]

[Magick1]

I love the end product too, rather than all of the work!

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

Mmm. My experience baking bread has been limited to frozen dough - no rising and punching. Thanks for the info.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

so HERE's why I thought bread was easy.

[pluckyduck]

MJ - Ha, yes, that would be *one* kind of bread.

Here's what I lost by never having been taught to make bread by hand. It took me much longer to be able to check my dough and fix mistakes before they baked themselves...once I started making more than very basic loaves.

Breadmaking is both a science and an art. The precise dry to liquid ratio that turns out beautifully one day, gives you a cracked top the next day because the humidity in your kitchen has changed. (I had one recipe, the bugger, that drove me to learn to check my dough and adjust because half the time it came out beautifully and half the time it fell in the middle!)

I was a very s-l-o-w student. When I started baking outside of the machine, I thought punching the dough meant punching the dough. I punched it. It didn't punch back. This was a good sign, yes? That first out of the machine loaf didn't turn out very well.

So there's plenty to think about and engage yourself in when trying to make teh breads that any help you can get with the manual labor is a good thing.

I have a picture of my purtiest loaf ever somewhere. If I can find it quickly, I'll post it 'cause...it was purtiest loaf ever.


P.S. Kim! Pay no attention to this part. Starting to make bread in a bread maker IS easy. I promise. Get just a loaf or two under your belt, and you'll be making great loaves in no time. Things only got complicated for me when I started trying to do the more advanced projects.

[drmomentum[$]]

pluckyduck said

Here's what I lost by never having been taught to make bread by hand. It took me much longer to be able to check my dough and fix mistakes before they baked themselves...once I started making more than very basic loaves.

Breadmaking is both a science and an art.

That's true.

I struggled for years playing with baking, until I learned a few tricks. True, I have a lot of experience baking now. But I swear that the next-to-best loaf I ever made required no experience at all. And no mixer.

I was pretty darn shocked when that happened.

It's as easy as these photos imply:
Low-Knead Steps - a set on Flickr

And I can't resist posting a bread photo:



The post that MJ linked to above:
Aces Full of Links: Crusty Low-Knead Bread Recipe

Describes the method for one of the best tasting loaves I've ever baked. Almost like a sourdough. Easy as anything to bake. And that is my fancy version of the recipe; a decent starter loaf can be baked with much less fuss.

I used to make fun of bread machines, but I understand the need to bake, even if it is in a machine. It's all good. No-Knead Bread taught America that you don't need experience or a machine to bake near-artisan loaves. You do need a dutch oven, though.

I don't know anything about bread machines, but I bet you can all get a better loaf than you expect (if you've never baked before) with the No-Knead recipe.

If anyone is interested in trying that, or just talking non-machine baking, start a thread and nudge me to participate. I'll be happy to provide info and advice.

There's another "new" technique out there that uses a refrigerated dough that sits around waiting for you to be ready to bake. I haven't tried it yet, but I am intrigued.

-JP