It's not that great. What works better is to use the machine to knead the dough and then finish it yourself. They're easy, but it has been my experience that they make tough loaves. Hope this helps!

You must've missed my post of about a week ago. I explained how elated I was when I waltzed a perfectly functional, very expensive bread machine out to our dumpster, and gave it a shove, bread and all. Good riddance.

I had it at least ten years. I used it primarily to mix dough, as the bread had a course texture to it, was a funny shape and had a big freaking hole in one end where the dasher churned the dough. Even when I used it for dough mixing alone, the dough would be worked until the gluten was as tight as a rubber gasket. It did make, however, awesome pizza dough where you want the gluten beat to hades and back. LOL.

I didn't find it made bread baking so much easier, nor quicker, for that matter, since a full cycle would take over three hours from mix to baking completion. What it does do, is keep you from being chained to the stove/kitchen for each stage of baking it from scratch. No watching for the 'knock down', or when it raised enough to stick it in the oven. You could, if you thought of it soon enough, throw it all together and basically walk away from it.

But, I don't think machine bread tastes any more like my home made, from scratch bread, then the sack of market noodles taste like my home made from scratch noodles.

On the box it suggests that you just throw in the ingredient and ten minutes later out comes the best thing since, well; sliced bread. A friend of mine had the same expectations of a washing/drying machine that was sold to him as a do it all machine he was genuinely disappointment when it didn't iron his shirts and darn his socks.

Anyway, thanks guys you just saved me $195.00. Sorry I missed the original calliope.

Oh don't be. I was highly P'ed, and my ranting was not a pretty sight. I regretted loosing a double batch of half-cooked dough more than the machine.

I am so dedicated to from-scratch cooking, but if I decided not to make my own dough anymore, I'd be more tempted to buy those frozen loaves of dough and bake them, than buy another machine.

Not worth the money. DH doesn't like them because you can only make bread in them in one shape & he says that the shape of the bread affects the taste (and since he's the cook in our house & a very good one indeed, I''ll take his word for it.). Plus he has banned uni-tasking appliances from the house, so we don't have one.

Okay, in the interests of balance if not justice, I'll take something of an opposing viewpoint.

Having made bread (rolls, pizza crusts, etc) since I was a toddler, I will say that doing it all yourself is not a big problem or especially difficult, providing you have wrists strong enough to knead a blob of dough for about ten minutes. The same measuring cups and spoons get mussed whether the process is by hand or by machine. The same art is needed to determine the proper moistness of the dough. Mostly the same amounts of the same ingredients are used. The cost of the baking is similar (actually, machines are a bit cheaper) but the initial cost of the machine itself is hefty.

Most machines make a peculiarly shaped loaf, upright rather than horizontal. Many bread machines are poorly made, with a life expectancy of few years or prohibitive repair costs. I have found two machines which [for me] have been the exception to that rule, and one of those is no longer made ~~ although I'm on my 9th year of using it. I will recommend the one linked, which has consistently been highly rated by testers, and makes a 'normal shaped' loaf.

Now, why do I use a machine? Well, the third time I broke my wrist, it didn't heal quite right, and kneading is painful after a couple minutes. I also like being able to put the raw ingredients in the machine before I leave for work, and come home to fresh-baked bread. And that's it; there is no other viable reason for not doing it manually! The cost of the machine [pro-rated] adds about 20 to each loaf, which still makes a 1½-lb loaf cost less than 40¢. If you have a day-old bakery outlet nearby, you can buy ready-made for less. Of course, you'll get a mouthful of chemicals along with the ease of buying ready-made, but that's a matter of personal choice.

Oh, and there really is a valid point about the time element (besides coming home to fresh-baked). Manual does mean kneading for about ten minutes, and being somewhat messy - I need an extra ten minutes to clean up the counter and mixing bowl; and manual does mean being aware of the time so as to punch down, and to let rise again before baking. Not a big deal as long as you use a timer, lol. However, if you have an ultra-busy schedule which does not even give you one 3-hour chunk of time, it simply may be easier to use a machine than to be available for punch and again to bake.

Flavor and texture is a matter of experimenting: to maintain moistness, I use potato starch because I do not use the chemicals found in commercial breads. Texture can be controlled so it is similar to coarse artisan breads or exactly the same as a commercial white loaf or anywhere in between. Flavor is invariably better than general commercial, and on par with the best of the small bakeries ~~ after all, flavor is formed by a combination of ingredients, and those ingredients are available to the home baker. Whether your bread is made by hand or by machine, it is likely to take ten loaves before getting exactly what you want, although basic white is so basic that even the first loaf is pretty good, lol.

A great deal of the flavor in bread comes from the fermenting of the dough.
Bread allowed to rise over night and baked the next morning will taste better than bread made in 3 hours in a bread machine.
And there are many recipes out there for "no knead" or "5 minute" breads and all are better than "quick like a bunny bread machine bread.
Artisanal bakers know to make a biga or a poolish or what ever you want to call it.
But if you want to gather a crowd, put that bread machine in a room with a vent fan and blow the smell of baking bread out side!
The bread linked below is really very very good...even if it does mean that it has to sit around for a long time. Once you get into the swing of it, you could constantly have some working and have this wonderful hot crusty loaf every day.
But to answer the OP....forget the machine, made by hand is better.
Linda C

My first husband wouldn't eat store-boughten bread, and at the time I was working full time and had two kids as well, and that meant I made the dough the night before, let it rise overnight, punched it down in the a.m. and put it on time bake in the oven. Wonder I didn't burn the house down. I have emotional baggage about bread rising over night. LOLOL.

There are so many ways to make a good bread dough, and finish it off. I agree with your husband, Andie, in that the shape of the loaf has a good deal to do with the taste, because it certainly plays into the amount of crust, and how the heat reaches the interior of the loaf. I also notice a difference in the container in which it's baked or on which it's baked. I often use cooking stones, or bread pans made of stone and it finishes off differently than the times I use regular bread tins. Even whether the tins are bright or dark will make a difference in how the loaf browns, and how it browns makes a difference in how it tastes.

But, tantamount to me, the texture is the issue. Course textures and irregular or large air holes are not what I like. I'll accept it if it's for dipping or to go with soups, but not for a slicing loaf.

My husband found a Zojirushi bread machine at a yard sale several years ago. He made bread in the machine and I made it by hand. Recently with the price of ordinary whole wheat bread going on sale for 2/$5 he started the bread machine up again. By accident when a fuse blew, I put the unbaked dough into a round casserole dish, the bread came out really great. So now I started to experiment. Regular whole wheat with flax and other seeds is excellent. My hand done rye bread is better. By far there is less mess with the machine and I can make 5 loaves of bread during the day using the machine to do 2 kneadings and risings and then baking in the oven. I never thought that I would come to like the machine. Someday I will do a side by side blind taste test with the machine and hand kneaded breads to see which rates best.

I can tell you what the result will be.

I doubt it, Andie, unless one is going to compare the appearance of the lump-style artisans to the machine's loaf. Otherwise, there are only two differences between machine and manual ~ the machine kneads and it has a timer, so the dough rises and bakes properly. Any other differences are in the recipe itself. Years ago, I did comparisons (using neighbors and friends for the innocent test subjects) and learned that the *crust* will differ, especially with those which are brushed with water, but the interior flavor differed not at all. Matching textures took some experimentation, but even there I was eventually able to develop recipes which resulted in near-identical texture. As Cedar noted, using the machine for kneading and rising, and then hand-shaping and oven baking can greatly ease the process ~ and permits the desired crust.

I use my Kitchenaid mixer to knead the dough. Like Andie's DH, I don't want any single-function machines.

My DSIL uses her bread machine only to knead. It takes up an enormous amount of counter space. I can't afford to lose that much space. I was very unimpressed by the machine-made bread.

There's a wide variation in quality of machines...some make decent bread, they do actually bake, and they have that nice crisp crust you just can't buy...plus you control the ingredients, and you can pump up the nutrition and fiber to no end.

If you just don't have three hours to hang around for all that kneading,rising and punching and rising and baking, it's still nice to have fresh bread. EZ Bake, just put the stuff in and push the button, the smell is just like you remember.

Just as an aside, i take care of a young handicapped girl (19) who hasn't taken anything by mouth in 12 years...and even then, she never ate bread...but everytime Mom bakes bread, she's right out there at the table, drooling and poking the loaf with her finger. It's in our DNA, I'm convinced.

Actually, I pitched my last machine, too...and if i make yeast bread i do it on a day off and really get into the zen of the thing. But I never had a bread-machine loaf last more than 24 hours in my house!

but everytime Mom bakes bread, she's right out there at the table, drooling and poking the loaf with her finger. It's in our DNA, I'm convinced.

Yes, Lynnie.........I'm convinced of that too. Somebody determined our little rural chunk of the world needed an industrial park in it, and the enterprise closest to us is a huge bakery. roflmao. If you have to have industrial smells and pollution, baking bread has to be the best kind to have. Whatever time they fire up the ovens is when I start getting hungry as the aroma floats for MILES, mixed in the cow dung from the fields, and the woodsmoke from the chimneys.

I just found this site and love the posts. I have made bread with my WelBilt bread machine for over 13 years and can't do without it. I have arthritis and can't knead by hand any more. I've adapted my family recipes to work in it. I doesn't bake bread worth a darn, but the kneading process works great. When it finally goes out on me, I'll gladly buy another. I bake all the bread for family get togethers using the manual setting, then follow the traditional procedure afterwards. I make large braided loaves as well as my mom's recipe for dozens of rolls. If I run on to another WelBilt at a garage sale, I'll snap it up.
Cooper

Hello everyone I am looking for directions for a kenmore bread machine. We have contacted sears and searched on the web to no avail. Please help. Thanks Jenny

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Mother earth magazine has a great recipe in it's January issue for no knead bread