OT: New Bread Maker required

[robgraham]

Some years ago, frustrated by my good lady's complaining about the performa nce of our Morphy Richards bread maker, I asked here about a forum where I could get some help, and it became a family tale that the DIY community con tained so many closet bread-makers that the thread ran to around 90 posting s.

Fortunately someone kindly came up with the comment that Morphy Richards' i nstructions were too prescriptive and changing the sequence of adding the m ix sorted the problem.

Now the machine has come to the end of it's life - the paddle bushing had w orn to the point that fluid from the mix was leaking out.

We need a replacement - do any of the 'closet' have a recommendation for a machine that reliably produces wholemeal type bread as that seems to be the weakness of some of the market offerings.

Thanks Rob

[Adrian]

Go old-school. All you need is two working hands and a bowl... Seriously, it's really not hard.

I use a nice simple recipe - kilo of flour (tends to be 50/50 white and "countrygrain"), two teaspoons of salt, two teaspoons of yeast (dove farm, orange packet), 600ml of hand-warm-to-hand-hot water.

Mix & knead, cover and leave for 45-min to an hour, knead, cover and leave again, shape the loaf (I don't use a tin), another 45min, spray with water, sprinkle with poppy/sesame/carraway seeds/rye flour/whatever, shove in an oven as hot as it'll go for 15min, then turn down to 180 for another 30 min. Plenty of elapsed time, not much actual work.

You'll never go back to bought or breadmaker bread again.

[Tim Streater]

Yes it is.

[snip]

When our M-R gave up the ghost we got a Panasonic (didn't both with the seed adding thingy, saved 20 quid). This was on the recommendation of one of the staff at John Lewis. She persuaded us it was worth paying an extra £20 for the Panasonic, because the pan is much thicker, heats more uniformly.

Anyway, by and large we've been happy with it. Got a new blade because the dough started sticking to the old one. Made sure we had fresh yeast.

Nice and crispy with nice crunchy crust of day one, after that it's suitable for toast only, by and large.

Would probably replace it with another Panny.

[Martin Brown]

Panasonic is pretty good. Mechanical wear or eventual failure of the motor run capacitor are the long term factors after a decade or so.

[george]

Panasonic. I changed to the Panasonic when our MR packed up nad its streets ahead.

[DerbyBorn]

We had no success with a MR - I think the window in the lid causes condensation problems. We changed it for a Panasonic and have not looked back. Every loaf is superb.

[S Viemeister]

There's a middle way - use a Kenwood or KitchenAid. Dump all the ingredients in the bowl, cover the bowl, let the dough rise, knock it back, shape, let rise, bake.

And the mixer is useful for many other things, as well.

[Bod]

We bought an expensive Panasonic breadmaker and it took about 5 hours of baking. You HAD to be ready at the end of the 5 hours to remove the bread from the baking tin immediately, otherwise it would carry on cooking and the paddle would embed itself in the loaf and was a cow son to remove. Then you'd have to clean out the tin/paddle etc. I gave the machine away in the end. Nice bread though.

Does it really only take about two & a half hours to do it your way, Adrian?

[Adrian]

Well, the loaf I made yesterday evening tastes pretty bloody good.

[Bod]

It's rude to talk with yer mouth full and you didn't confirm my question. The baking time appeared to be very short.

[Adrian]

Or you could read that as a "I'm not talking from a position of ignorance here, since I do this regularly." Your call.

But, anyway, two 45-1hr rises, another 45 after shaping, then 45 in the oven. I make that three hours plus.

[Gordon Henderson]

Except that if you use them regularly for making bread the domestic ones wear out/break )-: Fortunately you can get kenwoods serviced with relative ease.

Well, that's my experience of our K-Mix anyway, however I was only using the K-Mix once or twice a week to knead the wholemeal doughs.

(I do the hobby artisan microbakery thing, making some 60-80 loaves a week currently)

Hand kneading is fun, but it can be hard if you don't have the mobility, and from what I gather most breadmakers can have a delayed start, so you wake up to fresh bread. Panasonic appears to be the best one to go for but I've no 1st hand experience.

Gordon

[Gordon Henderson]

His baking time seemed OK to me. I typically do 12 minutes at 250C then

22-30 at 200C depending on the mix. Maybe a bit longer for bigger loaves.

Gordon

[Adrian]

Ooh. I'd love some suggestions for alternate recipes... We've had a go at bagels, pitta, naan, focaccio with success...

You sell through a local market?

We did have a breadmaker that did that a few years back. Apart from the bread not actually being very nice, we found the "fresh for breakfast" to be utter torture. It made nice bakey smells about an hour before it was ready, and before the alarm clock went off...

[Bod]

Ok, cheers.

[Adrian]

Oh, forgot one tip that we were given...

Put a roasting tin of water in the bottom of the oven, to increase the humidity in there and help the crust develop. Commercial bread ovens use steam-injection, I'm told.

[S Viemeister]

That's the little one? I've been using the Chef. And a KitchenAid. The KA has been used for bread hundreds, perhaps thousands, of time over the past 30+years. I've had to replace the dough hook, but the machine itself still works fine (crosses fingers).

[fred]

You'd be better placing a pizza stone or heavy metal plate in the oven befo re bringing it up to temperature. Then once the bread is in the oven splash a drop of water on the pizza stone to instantly fill the oven with steam a nd rapidly close the door. You're trying to simulate the steam injection in a bakers oven

[Adrian]

Interesting, ta.

[Big Les Wade]

I use a Panasonic that I bought second-hand a couple of years ago. It is excellent, although some of the settings are disappointing. The "Italian" one is supposed to make ciabatta, but it doesn't. It's nice enough bread, but it's not ciabatta.