Thoughts on breadmakers

I'm no baker, but my friend is thinking of getting one and wondered if they were any good, so I told her I'd ask my pro friends.

Yays?

Nays?

Thanks.

The new one is advanced, but I think we've used it once.

Basically it's brainless bread-making. Some stuff, like if you want artisan bread, you're not going to get from cooking the dough in the bread-maker itself, but you could use the breadmaker to prep the dough and then you cook it in the oven.

There are lots of bread mixtures out there - basically dump in the ingredients, and whatever other stuff (e.g.: eggs, liquids), turn it on - you can even have it time to wake you up in the morning with fresh bread. It's not usually the kind of bread texture I personally go for, but I'm a little picky, but for waking up to a fresh loaf of, say, wheat bread, it's hard to argue with.

I want to do more with mine, mainly in the line of pizza dough preparation.

I do note that a number of people seem to get a bread maker, go through a flurry of fresh bread, and then get breaded out. I don't eat that much bread myself, so I'm one of them, but if I was into having fresh bread every day, I could make it happen with one of those. Not the same as from a professional bakery, but at least you don't have to go outside in your robe to get it fresh and warm.

And they don't cost that much anymore, relatively speaking. I bet $200 gets you a near top-of-the-liner bread maker. Maybe even less money than that.

Or ask a friend if you can borrow theirs - I'm sure you have someone who's got one collecting dust. If it's not too old, it'll be a representable sample.

If you're gonna make bread, learn the way to dough feels! It's such an integral part of bread baking. I've always wondered what's the point of doing it in a machine. 'Course, we have several bakeries in town that are so good that I no longer bake at all, for the most part. I can't even approach their quality, and I'm a good baker.

My husband laughs at me because no matter how many loaves of bread I've made (and I've made a lot), he always hears my tell-tale exclamation of joy and satisfaction when I'm kneading and feel the dough go from globby to silken. And the aromas....

I'm currently trying to wean my stepdaughter off of her mother's bread machine and teach her how to make bread from scratch. She loves to cook, but is a bit intimidated at the prospect of doing bread by hand. She's intrigued with my current sourdough experiment, so I'm hoping this'll help get her over the hesitation.

Good machine, worked well, turned out easy to deal with loaves without any intervention from me.

Then the houseguest put the pan in the dishwasher while we were in Indiana - she said she didn't want to wash it by hand because of her gluten sensitivity :eyes: - and now the pan doesn't work any more.

So I'm using the Cook's illustrated american sandwich recipe (with oatmeal) in the stand mixer.

They're great if you're a bread lover. If you're not, they're not worth the counter space.

I'll buy a replacement pan come spring when I don't want to be baking through the summer.

and they'll email you when someone posts it. very cheap and easy.

i mainly thinking it would be good to keep my kitties out of the dough while it rises.
i remember some thing about the cycle options being really important but i can't remember why.
:shrug:

But that's just my opinion. I use mine mostly to make pizza dough. It's okay for a plain old loaf of bread if I don't have the time or the energy to mess around.

It depends on what you mean by crust, though. They pretty much all produce thin, American style crusts. To get, the thicker, crispier European style crusts requires a humid environment.

I find I get a chewier crust. Not like bakery bread, but nice :)

I use it a lot. I make a plain whole wheat sandwich bread every few days for the kids. For dinner bread, I have several recipes I like. I do pizza dough every few weeks and sweet breads on the weekends. Because of the demands of raising small children, I have a hard time concentrating on details, so learning the art of bread making is a bit much for me right now. The bread machine produces a consistently good result with little effort on my part.

I do make starters in the machine, which makes a more complex, chewier final result. Sometimes I do a starter, run it through the dough cycle of the machine, then shape it by hand and bake it in the oven. But mostly I just bake it in the machine.

I have the Breadman Ultimate, which I got for $50 (check Overstock.com). I like it fine. The Zojirushi is apparently better. Also costs $200. If I replaced the Breadman, I would consider a Zo, just because I use the Breadman often and it might be worth it to me.

There are two bread machine cookbooks that I have found helpful. The one that came with the machine is excellent for everyday breads. I also purchased this one which is a little more complicated and talks about using starters, shaping your own loafs for the oven, etc.



http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385477775/qid=1135171328/sr=2-2/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_2/104-3191258-0015949?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

I think bread machines are great if you just want reliably good, hot, fresh bread. If you are looking to experience the art of bread making, probably a stand mixer is a better investment. Also remember that bread machines are BIG, so your friend should be sure she has a place to store it.

i'm thinking i'd use it to make the dough and then bake it in the oven.
between the crust and the size of the slices, i'm not crazy about the machine loafs, but if it can pay attention to the rising times, when to knead, etc....etc for me... it could be worth it. i do love hot bread.

counterspace. Just dump in a mix, dump in some water, set the timer, and be greeted with fresh bread in the morning. Very seductive.

They're not for serious cooks, though. They're also not for people with small kitchens.

So before you spend the money, know who you're buying it for. Some people will love it. Others will use it once and then resent the space it takes up.

just good, wholesome ingredients.

My main objections to a breadmaker is you are limited in the recipes you use to ones that fit the capacity of your machine. Also, you need to make sure you will like the size and shape of the loaves it will make. I have a bread machine and I don't like the shape of its loaves, the slices are too big. Now that I've gotten my big kitchenaid mixer out after years of disuse, I don't know that I will use the bread machine again. I suppose you could just use the machine for the dough cycle and bake it in the oven, but if you have a good mixer, I don't see that you're saving that much time or effort.

When I make bread I like to make 2 or 3 loaves at a time, so the kitchenaid with the dough hook works best for me. However, if it's a question of never having fresh bread or using a bread machine, I'd say go with it.

After I bought it, I didn't buy a commercial loaf of bread for about three years.

It's great for being able to make real whole grain breads (as opposed to artificial caramel-colored "wheat" bread) and wild and interesting variations that aren't available commercially.

You know exactly what's in the bread you make. No chemistry lab ingredients that you can't spell or pronounce.

Fresh home-baked bread is always a hit at potlucks. My pumpernickle has always been popular. It's good even without butter, jelly, or anything on it.

The last few years I seldom use the machine. Partly because I eat less bread than I used to, partly because real whole grain breads and weird and interesting kinds are more available commercially than they used to be (Trader Joe's has some nice ones), and partly just busy and/or lazy.

A couple drawbacks:
1. Mine has an odd-shaped pan that makes a loaf with very large slices. Breads that don't rise a lot come out as a cube of bread rather than a loaf.
2. There's always a gap in the part of the loaf where the mixing/kneading handle was, so the slices from that part of the loaf aren't useful for sandwiches and you have to spread them carefully. (Removing it from the bread machine and baking it in a normal bread pan in a normal oven would solve that, but I have never bothered.)
3. Recalculating recipes in bread machine cookbooks to match the size of the loaves that your machine makes can be a pain in the butt.

I got it for $50 on QVC....6 years ago. I use it every other day. I want to say that I use only King Arthur's Flour. I make raisin bread, winter wheat-white bread, terrific pizza dough as my frequent items. The cost savings have been trememdous.......the flavor and fun....imeasurable.

Especially for soft, fluffy-type bread things like dinner rolls. Occasionally I bake a loaf in it but not often. I have 3 stand mixers and nothing develops the gluten in bread dough like the bread machine. I went through quite a "thing" about it for a while, wanting to be a "purist," thinking tha bread machines were inferior.... but I finally came to terms with the fact that bread machines are designed and built with one major purpose in mind - to knead bread dough, develop the gluten, and then rise & bake the bread. It's major purpose in life was to develop bread dough. So as much as I love my mixers (and I DO love all 3 of them, they each are wonderful in different ways), I always get a stronger, higher-rising loaf when I mix the dough in the bread machine. The mixers make great bread dough, just not quite as high-rising as the bread machine.

because you're the queen of bread.
:hi:

A couple of years ago my housemate and I split up. Because I'm "the queen of bread" I was curious about the breadmaker and wanted to play with it some. I had a piece of un-used exercise equipment that she was interested in, I wanted the breadmaker. So we swapped and I've enjoyed the breadmaker much more than I ever did the exercise equipment. So.... I can honestly say that I've never bought one... but I enjoy using it to mix dough, especially things like dinner rolls.

of yours, which was facinating, BTW. and i was trying to figure out if i could get away with using a bread machine and then baking in the oven.
i'm not really fond of the bread machine shape ot crust limitations, but i love hot bread. that book recommended up thread looks good and i wondered if you would recoomend any others if i'm going with the machine. i saw there were also bread machine recipes on your old site too, are they better than usual? i kinda expect they are! Keep it up housewolf, you're quite the inspiring baker.

But you can't have him -- unless you promise to send him back in time to make ME a loaf of bread.

Seriously, he makes bread the old-fashioned way, uses milk and sugar mixed with water to make the yeast rise, and puts the dough in a warm crockpot to get it to rise. Works out real nice that way.

It's one of the most used appliances I have. I like homemade pizza better than store bought, and I make the dough in the machine all the time.

I do some loaves of bread in it because my husband is a compulsive sandwich eater, and it's nice to set it at night in 5 minutes and when he gets up at 6am, the bread is piping hot and waiting for him - and the house smells like fresh bread.

I also use it for french bread dough, then roll it out and wrap it jelly roll style with fresh mozzarella and bake for a real crust. And I use it to mix dough for baked samosas, another staple in my house.

I work fairly long hours, and there's no way I'd make yeast breads after I get home if I didn't have that to mix the dough.

You take dough for french bread lay it out long, put mozzarella on it and roll it up like a jelly roll and then put it back in the machine to bake, kinda ending up with a mozzarella roll?

The cheese survives the long cooking temperatures I guess - how thick do you make it (the cheese)?

And, if you can do that, any reason why you can't do some kind of "garlic bread roll"?

I take the french bread dough, roll it flat, put the cheese on it, roll it up - then put it on parchment paper and bake it in the oven. The cheese doesn't cover it perfectly - it's not grated cheese, so it doesn't cover as well as you'd expect in a pizza, for example. String cheese works well - the kind with nigella seeds, not the crappy individually wrapped american cheese version of string cheese.

And yeah, you could do garlic bread like that, or butter and herbs.

It's like fun childish finger food because you can pull it apart in a spiral to eat it, but with good quality cheese, it's something you can serve to company without hanging your head in shame.


I wore out my first machine - I used it so much the rotating thing under the bucket that makes the blade spin actually wore down, like gears get worn down. The company sent me a new one, and it was the next higher model since the old one was discontinued. My daughter made 7 batches of dough this week in ours, some with dried tomato, some with olives, and some with blueberries and walnuts, and made them into dinner roll sized blobs and baked them in the oven. Yum!

Oh, and you could get one for 15 dollars at salvation army, at least around my neck of the woods.

Two that I grew up with and still make occasionally are parsley bread and spinach bread. They're actually pretty much the same thing. Roll out your dough kinda like a pizza crust, but more rectangular than round. Mix some garlic, olive oil and either raw parsley or cooked (and well-squeezed - to dry) spinach. (make the spinach more wilted than cooked to death). Spread the mixture over the bread, sprinkle on some salt and pepper to taste, roll up into a loaf and bake according to the type of dough you have.

I might try that with some feta or ricotta added in.

I'm not a fan of bread machines. I think my kitchenaid mixer was a much better investment. With the dough hook on there, I don't have to do any of the kneading and I get some pretty nice bread for not a lot of work.