Real bread at home every day - yummy! (Panasonic SD 252)

Member Name: Nicholate

Product:	Panasonic SD 252
Date:	24/09/08 (84 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use and easy to clean. Delicious! Oh, and that baking smell... aah!

Disadvantages: You have to wait up to 5 hours ... but it's worth every minute!

We got the Panasonic SD-252 as a Christmas present from our kids a couple of years ago and it has been in constant use ever since. I have no idea about other breadmakers but there are two things I feel I should mention. First, I know my children are extremely hot on doing research before buying products, so they will have gone over all the pros and cons of various machines before having decided on this particular model. Second, for many years we used to bake our own bread (by "we" I mean mainly my wonderful spouse) and although that was excellent I do have to admit that the bread produced by this machine is even better, being lighter, fluffier and more evenly textured.

In the almost two years we've had the machine there have only been a couple of bad outcomes, both of which were "our" (my!) fault. Once I forgot to add salt - the resulting loaf looked wonderful but was not very pleasant to the taste. Another time I realised I only used about half the amount of water I was supposed to, so it came out something like a house brick.

The machine is pretty easy to use. Basically you just measure out the ingredients following whichever of the many recipes provided you have selected, pop them into the loaf tin, put the loaf tin into the machine, select the settings appropriate for the recipe, and press the Start button. There is a convenient countdown display, which you can easily check to see how soon it will be ready. Dead easy. Afterwards, cleaning is pretty easy too. One other thing, after tapping the bread out (make sure you have a grill ready to stand it on to cool, and YOU WILL NEED AN OVEN GLOVE) it is a good idea to put some cold water into the tin and allow it to stand for a bit to cool down, and then make sure you remove the paddle while the dough traces are still wet, else it gets stuck and very difficult to get out in order to clean it. But basically that's all just common sense.

I have just a few minor criticisms. The handle can be a bit difficult to get hold of, using an oven glove, when the loaf is ready. Tip: hook it out with the wrong end of a wooden spoon. I don't like the loaf size descriptions, why can't they just put Small, Medium and Large rather than Medium, Large and XL? That seems silly to me, although it has been suggested to me these are actually "legal" sizes, defined by Europe or something!!!? The other minor gripe I have is that the beeper only goes about six times when the bread's done, and that's it. I wish it would beep for longer, basically I would prefer it to keep on beeping until it's seen to. I don't understand why not, it's not as if it's battery driven. One final teensy gripe is the hole in the bottom of the loaf which results from the action of the paddle. However, I imagine this is common to all breadmakers and is just one of those things that applies to mechanically made bread. And it's a price worth paying, in my opinion, just to avoid all that kneading by hand!

Otherwise, a great device, which I highly recommend to anyone who fancies a regular supply of fresh baked lovely yummy bread, day after day ... Mmmmmm.

Final Note: One thing, on several occasions until we got used to it, I found myself creeping downstairs, investigating strange noises in the middle of the night, only to find it was just the bread being kneaded! :)

Summary: Great bread of the kind you like, fresh for you every morning (or whenever).

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