What is a Bread Maker?
A bread baker, bread machine or bread making machine is a home kitchen appliance for baking your own bread.
It typically has a removable bread pan (or “tin”), with one or more built-in paddles mounted in the center for kneading the bread dough. The small, special-purpose oven of the appliance is usually controlled by a basic computer using settings via a user input control panel. Most bread machines have different cycles for different kinds of dough – including basic cycles, special whole wheat cycles and some even for gluten-free baking recipes.
Some high-end bread maker models have additional programs for sourdough starters, meatloaf or even jam! Further, some of them allow for programming of a custom user cycle, but this is recommended for more advanced users only – or if you have plenty of time and patience to test your unit model’s programming options to fine tune the perfect custom cycle that works for you and the kind of bread you like to create!
Many bread machines also have a very convenient timer, which allows the bread maker to run at various time delays and you just get up in the morning to a freshly created loaf of bread for breakfast!! Nothing beats that smell of fresh, home made bread through your house or apartment. Trust me, I speak from experience here!
The Zojirushi BB CEC20 bread machine is both beautiful and functional.
How to Use your Bread Maker
To create a loaf of bread, place the pan in the breadmaker, and measure your ingredients per your recipe in their specified order. Add the ingredients into the pan. You usually want to put liquids first, with dry ingredients put on top. The yeast will go in as the very last ingredient, and I usually create a small volcano or crater on top of the dry ingredients to safely hold the yeast. The order of ingredients is very important because you don’t want to activate the yeast before it’s time. Most bread makers will have an initial “warm-up” period in which the ingredients lay inactive, so you want to protect the yeast by keeping it apart from the water until the program cycle starts.
You won’t need to worry about forgetting something or getting your timing wrong because the machine handles all that for you. You won’t need to halt the machine and peek, then restart when you’ve got a viewing window. It’s all set in the specific timer modes!
Homemade vs. Store-bought Bread
There is of course no competition in terms of what tastes better, homemade bread or store-bought bread. Of course, the homemade bread will be plenty more delicious! However, it will last a little bit less long on your counter top because it won’t include any preservatives or other additives that may prolong its shelf life in the grocery stores.
Bread Maker Pros
- You really only need basic ingredients: If you’d like to create your own bread, you would really only need to purchase a few ingredients that go into making a basic bread: flour, eggs, butter, yeast. And you’ll need water. But – when you get hooked on creating your own bread, it’s going be difficult to return to the ordinary. Hence my next point:
- But if you want, you can get as creative as you’d like: Getting my bread maker has meant that I have started to bake my own bread, instead of purchasing them at the neighborhood baker. I love to use variations of ingredients, from cranberries, nuts, or oatmeal to different cereals (yes, totally!), different sweeteners, or different mixes of flour.
- You can have fresh bread the minute your alarm goes off: Some bread machines include delay timers, which means you may set the bread maker to begin at a particular time – usually sometime in the middle of the night so that when you wake up in the morning, your bread is as fresh as it can be!
Bread Maker Cons
- It’s another appliance in your home. Some people don’t like that. Some people basically ‘collect’ kitchen gadgets and machinery (🙋 guilty). In either case, you might want to consider storage space and counter space that will be used up for the days or evenings when you’ll be running your bread maker.
Why Use A Bread Maker At Home?
There are many things that may go wrong when you attempt to make bread completely by hand. Bread machines therefore are extremely useful machines which have been designed to make bread baking easy for you. They are a modern marvel that many people are just starting to discover. 🙂 Once you get your machine, it’s easy to get started making homemade bread in only minutes!
It’s unbelievably easy to begin, particularly when you opt to bake a form of bread which has been baked several times before, such as the basic square loaf. It takes only 3-5 minutes to put ingredients in the bread maker, and put the bread maker in the baking mode. But just so you know, with vertical loaves, the bottom is always a little more dense due to the extra weight that sits on it while baking. This is a little known fact, but hardly noticeable anyway when you go to eat your bread.
The Zojirushi BB-CEC20 Programmable Bread Machine is an excellent all-around bread machine which will make terrific loaves of bread each time! Still, in case you only need to create a little loaf of bread weekly or so, an affordable machine may be all you want. Have a look here at some more basic models and options and yes – there are cheap bread making machines that may turn out a good loaf of bread. Lots of machines are available on the marketplace today and if you want, you’re able to even find bigger machines which make 2-pound loaves.
In Summary
A bread maker can be the most useful, and most fun kitchen appliance you’ve bought in years! You can try out so many recipes, and bake so many different kinds of breads, you’ll never run out of bread baking ideas! You’ll enjoy healthier, better bread for everyone in your family, along with the satisfaction that you’ve made it yourself. I never forget the day I bought my bread maker – it was one of the best decisions I’d made in years.
For some individuals, bread making is a tremendous lifestyle change. For some people, it is a hobby. Either way, you’ll never know until you try!
xoxo, Em