A tale of bread and woe. (Breville Breadmaster)

Member Name: Bryn Pearson

Product:	Breville Breadmaster
Date:	12/06/01 (1409 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: you can make fun bread

Disadvantages: there`s so much that con go wrong.

Some of my problems with the breadmaster are presonal, but I shall recount my sorry tale for your entertainment and enlightenment.

The theory is this. You put all the ingrediants in the machine, select the bread type and how well done you want it, and then let the machine get on with it. The practise is somewhat different.

Some years back I was living with a bloke who had bought himself one of these things. He had decided that he wanted fresh bread every day and that the bread machine could go on overnight. Bread from these machines needs a good twenty minutes to coll down before you cut it, which can result in having to get out of bed very early.

For some reason, about 50% of the time, the bread just did not rise. There would be a thin heavy biscuit, and that would be it. Very, very often the thing for turnign the mix would get stuck in the loaf and would be impossible to remove without tearing the loaf in half. (Thus making it lousy for sandwiches.)

Power spikes would cause the machine to go back to the start of the process and do it all again, regardless of how far through it had got.

Sometimes the spinning mixing bit would fall off, and the ingrediants would not be mixed before they were cooked. (Results horrible.)

Cleaning up afterwards was hell - the insides were none stick,but everythign stuck to them. I hated washing this thing out. I hated trying to take the bread out of it as well, which was surprisingly difficult.

The ratio of good bread to inedible bread was such that I gave up. I now make bread by hand which is far less hassel and far easier to control.

I would imagine that bread machines are quite fun if you want to use them every now and then. As a thing to use every day, they really aren`t that good.

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