In the past I have always been a little bit apprehensive when it came to making fresh bread by hand, I wasn't a bad cook by no means, In fact I was quite adventurous in the kitchen trying out new recipes with new different types of ingredients, which at times turned out great. However more often than not, the end product didn't always come out the way I expected it too; that's why I chose to branch out and try using a bread maker; which I hoped would save time, effort and produce a more palatable dish.
The other reason for opting to purchase a bread maker was the increasing price of bread loafs in the supermarkets and the quality of the breads not always being great, as I often found supposedly labelled fresh breads to be fairly stale and not fresh tasting.


==DESIGN==


The Cookworks Breadmaker I have is white in colour and is shaped in a rectangular design, and comes with bread pan, measuring spoon, kneading blade, measuring cup and instruction manual and recipe book. The mixture of ingredients are added to the machine via the top lid which is easy to open up. It has a small see-through plastic window which is great as it allowed me to continuously see and check the progress of the bread and far along it was.
The controls are located on the top of the bread maker where there are many different settings to choose from; such as crust options. It has nice clear LCD display screen allowing for clear informative viewing of the settings chosen.


==HOW TO USE==

There is a beep noise that sounds once the bread maker is switched on. The non stick bread pan is then removed to which I add the ingredients. Once the ingredients are made into a mixture, a setting should be chosen to instruct the machine the type of bread that you would like to make. It is worth noting that the ingredients should be put in into machine in the right order as instructed in the recipe book. I found myself occasionally getting the order of ingredients wrong, which resulted in a sticky, unshaped bread with incorrect consistency.

I loved how the machine did pretty much everything for you, once ingredients are added you basically just sit back and watch the machine do all the hard work, leaving no mess behind to clean up. The bread machine hardly makes any sound during the cooking and kneading process.

I found the measuring tools that came with the machine to be useful, it allowed me to easily measure the Tsp and Tbsp proportions correctly, the measuring cup however was a little small; making it difficult at times to get the right measure of water for the recipes that required higher levels of fluid. The bread maker can make bread sizes of 2Ib's and has three crust setting to choose from depending on how well you like your bread done.

The recipe book was a great contribution, making, basic bread (white and brown), muffins, Chelsea buns, doughnuts, hot cross buns fairly easy. It can take 1 hour to make simple bread, and up to 3 hours for more advanced larger recipes.

I great advantage to this machine was that it was very easy to Clean and wash; just a short time soaking it hot water and soft wiping with sponge did the job for me.


There are advanced models available, but as a beginner and a bread making novice I think this is ideal.

==PRICE==

I got mine from Argos during a sale and was priced at around £26.99, which is very cheap compared to other more expensive brands and makes very good tasting bread.