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.

It didn’t take long before the big brand names came out with their own versions, and at more reasonable prices. By the mid 1990s an excellent quality bread machine could be found in the under $100 price range. They were smaller, quieter, and with more options than their early predecessors.

Since any baker will tell you, you need a round pan to mix ingredients, so the first bread machines all produced round loaves of bread. The loaves may have looked strange, but they still tasted like regular homemade bread – fabulous. So who could complain? It would be another few years before manufacturers figured out how to make a bread machine with a square baking tin that could also produce some reliable bread.

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.

Bored with making just bread all the time? Newer models have custom settings for Danish, pizza dough, specialty doughs like Italian bread, and a whole range of other tasty options. The machine will still mix the dough, let is rise, and then let you know when it’s ready for your next steps.

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.

Before making a decision on which one to bring home, look at it to see how easy it is to keep clean. When mixing begins, flour tends to get all over the place as does any liquid ingredients. Check out the machinery to see which parts are removable and washable. Also check to see if the heating coils are protected at all – these are fragile and difficult to clean at all costs.

One very important part that you need to remove completely is the top. Bread can sometimes rise too high and stick to it. Cleaning can be difficult if you can’t take it off. Also look for internal splash guards that you can remove to wash.

Categories : Baking