Pod Coffee Makers 411

If one of your major temptations is fresh bread, then you need a bread machine to indulge your cravings. Regardless of personal preferences or even budgetary constraints, you are guaranteed to find the perfect one for you.

They made their debut to the residential consumer back in the 1980s. Considering their fairly heft price tags of $300 – $400, they still were a big hit. New companies were started just to mass produce these, and they became overnight sensations. Well known kitchenware manufacturers still hadn’t caught on as yet.

Finally in the 90s the big houseware lines jumped in and produced a better product for less money, usually in the $75 to $100 range. In stark contrast to the earlier versions, these were less noisy and much less bulky. Many had far more options than the older ones as well.

The first models only were able to make round loaves of bread. Even though the slices tended to look a bit odd, the style was necessary because only a round mixing tin internally was going to be able to handle the job. Manufacturers hadn’t quite figured out how to implement square mixing pans that would produce consistent results. Regardless of the odd appearance, this bread tasted just as good as grandma’s did!

Today bread machines are able to produce square and rectangular loaves although the original design is still more practical and the end result is more consistent. The square loaves tend to have uncooked or burned edges, or even sections that were not mixed correctly at the beginning of the cycle.

Bread machines don’t just make bread, either! Most of them have settings for pizza dough, bagel dough, and various stop and start manually controlled switches that allow you to mix the dough but remove it at various times to add ingredients or split the dough into smaller sections.

If you have ever tried to make your own home made bread, you’ll see right away how much time and effort these machines save while still producing equal or better bread. They are set up to standardize mixing times, raising times, and kneading times. If you have ten minutes to add the ingredients, and if you know how to push a button, you already know how to use a bread machine.

One of the key factors in deciding which one to buy is to see how easy it is to clean. The easier it is to clean, the more expensive it will be, but still very reasonably priced in contract to 25 years ago. Most machines only allow you to remove the baking pan or pail in which your bread bakes. These are usually dishwasher safe. However, as the pan turns and jostles about inside, flour will fly and milk will splash. Cleaning up these spills can be almost impossible. Chances are that the spills will fall all the way down to the heating coil, and these are very difficult to clean because they are pretty fragile.

If nothing else, try to find a machine with a completely removable cover that is dishwasher safe. Dough can easily get burned onto this, making cleaning a pain. Also try to find a machine with some sort of internal guards that can be removed for cleaning.

John McKain is a restaurant owner and an experienced baker. He owns a breadmaker reviews blog and aims to help his readers find the best bread making machine for baking bread.

No related posts.