Breville Breadmaster (Breville Breadmaster)

Member Name: christinemc

Product:	Breville Breadmaster
Date:	21/01/01 (2683 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fan assisted for even cooking, recipes included, timer facility, dough making facility, easy to use, window so you can watch it at work

Disadvantages: definitely a luxury item

We got this as a Christmas present to ourselves. I have made one attempt to use a recipe that involved kneading dough, and it didn't turn out very edible, so I figured we were not destined to have home made bread any other way!

Breville have a good reputation in this area, and the breadmaker is certainly a great new toy. This model (not the same as the other one listed on dooyoo - hence I've not put this opinion there) is fan assisted to help with even cooking, has a clear window so you can watch the whole process, comes with a comprehensive instruction booklet and numerous recipe ideas - which include several gluten free options. Also you can use it as a dough maker if you wish to make pizza bases, dough for rolls or shaped loaves etc.

It is very easy to use. Simply remove the bread pan from the machine, add the ingredients in the order given (yeast, flour, other dry ingredients, water & fat usually), wipe the sides clean, replace it into the machine, close lid, turn on, select type and size of loaf (500g, 750g or 1kg) and you're away. The standard cooking time is 3 hours 25 minutes, that includes mixing the dough, letting it rise, and cooking the bread, so from raw ingredients to fully cooked bread in under 3.5 hours, not bad. There is even a rapid bake option if that's not fast enough for you, though we haven't tested that out yet.

So far we have stuck to 2 bread recipes, the basic white and the granary. The granary has worked really well from day one. The basic white didn't seem quite right, til I realised that in all the other recipes the amount of sugar was in tablespoons and in this one it was in teaspoons. I assume it was a misprint because since I adjusted to tablespoons the bread has tasted fine. We generally make a 750g loaf, purely because the quantities of ingredients seem easier to measure for this size loaf. It's plenty big enough for our family needs.

This breadmaker has a
timer facility, you can delay for up to 13 hours, but that includes the cooking time. So basically if you want to have fresh bread at 8am you can set the machine on the maximum timer at 7pm the previous night. We used the timer once and didn't think the loaf turned out quite as well as usual, but maybe that was because it was my husbands first go at using the machine...!!

Once the cycle is complete, you should remove the bread immediately, but we find the crust is sometimes a bit hard, and leaving it in the machine for a few minutes just lets it soften enough to be just right. When you take it out, a few shakes and it will come out of the pan. Check if the dough hook is in the bread, sometimes it is. One downside of baking bread in a breadmaker is you always get a hole in the bottom from the dough hook. But that's not really a major gripe.

This is a good breadmaker. I'm not yet convinced that a breadmaker is a great investment, it is a luxury item for sure, but on the other hand if you keep the ingredients stocked up, it's lovely to be able to bake a nice loaf of fresh bread on a whim. And I'm looking forward to making my own pizzas!

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