After much debate and some research, we decided to buy a breadmaker last Christmas. Prices were rising at our local bakery, and I was too lazy to make bread by hand. I tried using our food processor for the kneading, but unfortunately it wasn't really designed for that, and the motor wore out. Breadmakers seem to get cheaper all the time, and I read some encouraging reviews. So we narrowed the field down to about four possible makes, and decided to buy one.
It was perhaps a silly decision to shop on Christmas Eve. One shop had completely run out of breadmakers, the other had only two in stock. I would have given up the hunt, but both of the two available were on our list of possibilities. After much discussion, we made the pragmatic decision to choose the one with English instructions (the other had only Greek and German). It was the Morphy Richards Fastbake. It claimed to make three sizes of bread, and to have a 'fastbake' setting for white loaves in only an hour. As well as a large number of other settings which I knew I was unlikely to use.
FIRST USE
We got it home, we cleaned and prepared it according to the instructions in the accompanying leaflet, and I decided to make the first loaf on Christmas Day. Unfortunately our kitchen worktops at the time were very cluttered so we plugged it in in a bedroom, loaded the ingredients, and promptly forgot about it. The smell wafted around the house combined with that of turkey and stuffing, and it wasn't until mid-afternoon that I remembered my new toy.
FIRST DOORSTOP
I opened it up, and discovered... a brick.
Perhaps not quite a brick, but it was a sad excuse for a loaf. It would have made a good doorstop, I expect. We did manage to hack a couple of slices with the electric carving knife, but it wasn't very nice. We put it down to experience.
SECOND DOORSTOP
A couple of days later we tried again. This time the machine was in the kitchen, and I measured the ingredients carefully. watched as it kneaded the dough, which rose, and was punched down, and rose again, higher and higher... and then sank as the baking process started.
This time we had a doorstop with a valley in the top, and although it tasted a little better than the first attempt (partly because we ate it fresh) it was quite a disappointment. For one thing, it was much sweeter than we liked. It was also rather yeasty, not an even texture, and a bit solid.
TROUBLESHOOTING
The recipe leaflet had a troubleshooting guide at the back, which suggested my problems could be to do with the temperature of the liquid - too hot, or perhaps too cold - or too much yeast, or too much liquid, or too little liquid.... which wasn't really very helpful.
ANOTHER RECIPE
It came out perfectly.
My recipe used considerably less yeast than the booklet had recommended, and no sugar at all (but a tablespoon of honey).
RECIPE BOOK
I decided to buy a book about bread, and ordered the inexpensive 'Fresh bread in the morning'. It had good explanations of how bread works, and what ingredients were necessary. It told me what I could substitute, and had a far better troubleshooting guide than that of the leaflet that came with the machine. I might as well have bought the one that didn't have English instructions, as I would then have turned directly to another book for recipes!
Since then, I've tried several different recipes and have mostly had good results. I did find that in about June my bread started sinking again after rising rapidly, and realised that the hot temperatures of Cyprus can cause problems. he liquid ingredients are supposed to be warmed before adding them, but I found that if the kitchen temperature was over 25C, it's better to add liquid at room temperature. When the temperature reaches 28C or more, I have to ensure my liquids are refrigerated before adding!
VARIATIONS
For the first few months, I only used the standard three-hour recipes, with variations. We found that bread made with all wholewheat flour was rather heavy, so most of my bread is made with half wholewheat flour, and the rest white flour (bread flour and strong plain flour mixed in equal quantities). My son gets glue ear if he eats dairy products, so we didn't want to add milk or milk powder as most of the recipes advised - but when we used just water for the liquid, the bread was almost too light to cut.
So we tried using half soya milk and half water, and find that's ideal. There's no soya taste, but the texture is good, and there's additional nutrition as a bonus. The breadmaker bleeps after the first rise, alerting me that I can add further ingredients if I wish: we've tried herbs, grated cheese, chopped walnuts, sunflower seeds or linseeds, dried chili flakes. All have worked well.
FASTBAKE
It wasn't until a couple of months ago that I tried the 'fastbake' setting, as I was afraid it might be a disaster. Since it only takes an hour, there isn't the same problem with the liquid ingredients so I used room temperature water and refrigerated soya milk, and the result was excellent.
Once the temperature drops below 25C, I'll slightly warm the soya milk. Fastbake bread is only supposed to use white bread flour, but we've found that up to half a cup of wholewheat flour can be substituted for a little more texture and taste. Any more than that makes the loaf rather hard, however, as wholemeal flour needs more kneading than white flour.
DOUGH
The other setting we've used is the one for dough. This mixes and kneads ingredients, and does the first rise. Then it bleeps, and the rest of the process has to be done by hand. This is good if you want to make bread rolls, or bake bread in the oven in a regular bread pan. It's also good for pizza base, or naan bread. The dough process takes an hour and a half, after which it has to be punched down by hand, then shaped and left to rise in a warm place before baking.
OTHER SETTINGS
There are other settings on the breadmaker, for cakes and jam, but I haven't tried those. The cake setting requires two separate bowls of different mixtures to be made, so it seems to me much more effort than simply baking a standard cake in a cake-tin. I've been warned that the jam setting is a bad idea, since it can easily overflow the container, leading to a horrible mess in the bottom of the machine which is almost impossible to clean. I will continue to use my ordinary jam pan for jam-making.
TIMER
One of the features is a timer. This means that ingredients can be left in the pan overnight, with the idea that the bread will bake in the early hours of the morning, ready just in time for breakfast. A great idea, but none of our family eat bread at breakfast time so we haven't done this. Sometimes if I'm going out in the morning I'll set the timer for an hour or two extra, since we like our bread at lunchtime to be still warm, and we find this works well. Fresh milk or eggs can't be used on a timer, as they might go bad, but we don't use those anyway in our bread recipes.
SIZES
There are three sizes of loaf that can be made, the biggest being a kilogram in weight, the others 750g and 500g. The smaller ones simply use less ingredients and have a slightly shorter cycle. We find that the smallest one tends to be a bit crispier than we like, and while the medium one is fine, I generally make the largest loaf as the texture is the best. It's more than three of us can eat at one meal, but we often have guests at lunchtime. If there's leftover bread, we find it freezes well and keeps for at least a few weeks in the freezer.
STANDARD PADDLE PROBLEM
Nothing is perfect. As with many breadmakers, the mixing/kneading paddle often gets stuck in the bottom of the loaf. Even if it doesn't, there's a hole where it was, and this can make cutting the bread a bit difficult. It's best to leave it for about half an hour on a cooling rack after baking, so it's still warm but not too hot to handle. If you try to cut it too soon after baking, it can fall apart. It still tastes good, but is rather tricky to spread.
CLEANING
I was afraid it might be a nuisance to clean a breadmaker, but it's really no problem at all. I soak the pan in cold water (and the paddle, which usually has a bit of bread attached to it) and then it's easy to wash an hour or so later. The outside of the breadmaker itself can just be wiped with a cloth, and a little washing-up liquid if necessary, and the inside shouldn't need cleaning at all. If it does, it should be switched off (obviously!) and any spills wiped with a cool cloth. I take the pan out of the breadmaker before putting in the ingredients, so that flour doesn't get into the inside of the machine.
COSTS OF BREAD
We've used our breadmaker at least four times a week for the last nine months. We still love the smell of baking bread, and the results. I like knowing exactly what's going into the bread we eat, and the taste is far superior to even the best of bakery breads. Even the cost isn't too high: we reckon that, including everything, a standard loaf to my half-wholemeal recipe above (without anything extra added) costs about half the amount of an equivalent bakery loaf of similar size, in our region.
Having said that, it depends what brands of flour and other ingredients you use; if you buy flour in bulk, and use fresh rather than soya milk, the cost would be less. You probably won't be able to make anything as cheap as unbranded sliced white supermarket bread - but since the nutritive value of home-baked bread is superior, it's far better value for money.
CONCLUSION
I'm sure other breadmakers work just as well, and may even cost less, but we're very pleased with our Fastbake machine. Just don't take the instruction leaflet too seriously.
2022 UPDATE
The Morphy Richards Fastbake breadmaker lasted us around six-and-a-half years with regular use. It only took a few months to pay for itself, effectively, in the savings on bakery bread, so although we had hoped it would last longer, it didn't owe us anything.
While this exact model no longer exists, Morphy Richards still have a breadmaker which they call 'fastbake' so I expect it's similar. For a budget or starter breadmaker, it's probably worth trying.
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