Never used a bread machine, but I thought they make only one form of loaf. What if you wanted to make rolls, or other forms?

You can get a better rise on bread, IME, baking it in an oven— but I don’t have the fanciest breadmaker, either. I have found Paula’s advice at Salad In a Jar website to be a wealth of reliable info on bread baking.

I use my kitchenaid mixer to knead the dough, proof it in my oven with just the oven light on, and bake it in breadpans of various shapes. I don't use a breadmaker - not enough control over the outcome.

Plus with a bread maker there's always that hole in the bottom or side of the loaf where the paddle goes in.

As others have said, it makes a much nicer loaf. I've been making bread for a couple of decades or so. Bread and rolls. I knead it all by hand, and go from there.

Bottom line - I've never had bread baked in a bread machine that I cared to eat. And they don't look good either. I do know some people use a machine to mix and then shape by hand and bake in the oven, but if you have a mixer or even a bowl and dough whisk, or even a wooden spoon, you can mix most doughs by hand very easily. A bench knife or dough scraper is handy for wet or sticky doughs.

You have so much more control when you work with the dough -- and it's much easier to make adjustments if the dough is a little sticky or a bit dry when you work the dough by hand or with a mixer. I do both.

When bread machines first came out I heard a lot of people say they wanted a machine because they didn't have time to make bread. A 2-3 hour loaf has only a few minutes of actual hands on time. Even a 2-3 day loaf doesn't have a lot more - most of the extra time is the dough resting and proofing to develop structure and flavor. Not to mention - bread machines are not cheap.

I never had a bread machine, but played with bread, but never liked making it. I hate kneading. I do not mind cooking roux, but the same amount of time kneading, barf. Son gave me a KA mixer and I make bread all the time now. It does a great job of kneading, I just give a small touch and set to rise in bowl, then shape, rise, and cook.?

A bread machine can knead bread dough. My kithen aide can knead dough and whip egg whites and cream and make butter and cakes and well you get the picture. A bread machine can bake the dough it kneads but my oven can.............

DH had a bread machine when I met him and he made bread in it a few times and then we passed it on and for some weird reason he felt the need to pick up another one at the thrift store as if having space on the shelf where the old one lived was too much space and the latest one has never been used. Sigh.

patriciae

You can make better looking loaves (of different types) by baking it after you remove the dough from the machine. Additionally, you can adjust the time to rise, and you can top dress it if you want.

I used my bread making machine primarily to make pizza dough.

I own TWO bread machines. My Zojirushi machine will let you adjust the 1st & 2nd rise or interrupt a rise and start in the middle of the program. The loaf is elongated. When I need to multi-task, the bread machine is like having a 2nd chef in the kitchen who can work without supervision. I can put ingredients in the machine and have fresh, hot bread at 6am in the morning to make egg sandwiches with...for instance. Or I have an Hitachi machine, a bucket shape, I use for mixing pizza dough. Note: If I were to put a bowl of dough in the oven to rise, away from my cats, then go to the gym for 3 hours, I'd forget it was there. I purchased the Zoji @ a thrift store for $7.50. I've used it for 20 years.Link to see one

When I had the good bread machine, setting it to have freshly-made bread ready when we woke up in the morning was pretty darn nice. I went for several years without actually buying any bread. Those days are over.

My KA not only kneads bagel dough to perfection, it is the most adorable thing in my kitchen.

I fixed the machinery in high production bakeries, and watched the master bakers make the same recipe dozens of times a day using the exact amounts of ingredients by weight. Fool proof you would think, but every 1000lb mixer full was checked by the baker with pokes and pulls of the dough, sometimes it was good and other times it needed more time.

Experience makes good bread and something one of those bread machines can never match.

Flour varies- sometimes it’s more absorbent, sometimes less, gluten content varies…

I dont think that I would like the limits of a bread machine and a bread machine is another single use kitchen tool.

I used my KA for decades to knead dough, and, of course the other hundred things that it can do. It does a wonderful job of kneading the dough smooth. I baked lots over the decades

Now it is just us two here and I have come back to baking most of our bread. The price of a good bread went up so much and the quality of it does not match the price.

But, I have put away my KA. At first it just went into a lower cabinet and I took it out on occasion. But, it was so heavy that I feared I would drop it getting it out. Then it went out to the place in the garage where I keep extra kitchen stuff.

Now, I just do by hand and I am fine with that. I like the extra space on the countertop and it really is just fine doing it the old fashioned way again.

But the KA does do a fine job of it! but , so do I.

I appreciate the quality of simplicity of just me and the mixing bowl.

Keeping it as simple as possible is how I roll nowadays!