How to choose a bread machine | Articles | Gadgets, gifts and accessories

Bak­ing home­made bread appeals to many. By pur­chas­ing a bread mak­er, you not only sim­pli­fy the task by get­ting fresh and deli­cious home­made bread. You get the oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­trol the com­po­si­tion and con­tent of bread, which, unlike store-bought, may con­tain healthy food addi­tives or cere­als. In a word, bak­ing home­made bread is an extreme­ly use­ful activ­i­ty. If you are plan­ning to pur­chase a bread mak­er for your home, we rec­om­mend that you first find out what para­me­ters are impor­tant to pay atten­tion to.

Do you need a bread maker?

Before pur­chas­ing a new kitchen appli­ance, be sure to find out for your­self if you need a whole bread machine? If you eat a lit­tle bread, then it is bet­ter to lim­it your­self to bak­ing in the oven. But if you and your fam­i­ly eat bread every day, plus if you don’t want to spend a lot of time bak­ing, but plan to bring the process to automa­tism, then a bread machine will cer­tain­ly be a rea­son­able pur­chase. It is also suit­able for those who seek to switch to a healthy diet and cre­ate their own healthy bread for­mu­la.

Keep in mind that mod­ern bread machines have a wide range of func­tions, so they are suit­able not only for mak­ing bread and can be use­ful to all bak­ing lovers. Before pur­chas­ing, of course, pay atten­tion to the list of func­tions.

Breadmaker cooking modes

The bread mak­er, depend­ing on the spe­cif­ic mod­el, may not lim­it the choice of func­tions exclu­sive­ly to bak­ing bread. Most man­u­fac­tur­ers equip the stove with addi­tion­al options.

One of the most impor­tant is the abil­i­ty to knead the dough. This fea­ture saves a lot of time by only allow­ing you to add ingre­di­ents and select a mode. The advan­tage of this func­tion is that the dough can be knead­ed for any type of pas­try with­out much dif­fi­cul­ty.

Based on the same mix­ing func­tion, bread mak­ers can make pre­serves and jams. Noth­ing spe­cial is need­ed for this, only fruits or berries. There will be lit­tle jam, but with this method of prepa­ra­tion, the prod­ucts will retain their ben­e­fi­cial prop­er­ties.

Bread is made grad­u­al­ly, and many of us pre­fer to add dried fruits, nuts or spices to it. In order for them to be added grad­u­al­ly, bread machines are equipped with dis­pensers.

Anoth­er use­ful mode that man­u­fac­tur­ers often include is main­tain­ing the tem­per­a­ture. Just like in mod­ern microwaves and mul­ti­cook­ers, you can keep the fin­ished bread warm or reheat it. This is very use­ful for those who spend the whole day at work, but like to return to a cozy table.

The timer is a fea­ture that any­one who counts every minute is sure to love. You add the ingre­di­ents, and the bread mak­er itself will pre­pare the bread just in time for you when you need it: for break­fast, lunch or din­ner.

Among the addi­tion­al func­tions, knead­ing dough for piz­za, yeast-free and pas­ta dough can be dis­tin­guished. Cook­ing por­ridge, jams, yoghurts. Some bread machines allow you to cook soups, pilafs and stew foods.

What to Consider

There are a few impor­tant points you need to con­sid­er before mak­ing a pur­chase. The first is the price. Bread­mak­ers do not belong to the cat­e­go­ry of cheap house­hold appli­ances, their cost is approx­i­mate­ly the same as that of microwave ovens. You can choose a bread machine at a price of 3,000 to 15,000 rubles, although on aver­age, it will take you 5,000 — 6,000 rubles. Of course, the choice of func­tions and char­ac­ter­is­tics of the stove will depend on the price, which are also worth pay­ing atten­tion to.

The size is also impor­tant, because, like any oven, the bread machine must be placed in the kitchen with­out cre­at­ing incon­ve­nience.

The most com­mon ovens are suit­able for mak­ing bread and cakes, cre­at­ing square-shaped prod­ucts, but there are excep­tions. These ovens are usu­al­ly more expen­sive.

A manda­to­ry require­ment is a remov­able bak­ing dish. For a com­fort­able wash, this is absolute­ly essen­tial. Also pay atten­tion to the pres­ence of a non-stick coat­ing on the form.

The mold can be alu­minum or stain­less steel. The sec­ond option is more durable and more expen­sive.

It is advis­able to select a mod­el with a win­dow through which you can observe the readi­ness and col­or of the prod­uct.

If you pre­fer spe­cif­ic breads, such as gluten-free ones, look out for a spe­cial func­tion for bak­ing them.

The oven can make a lot of noise while knead­ing the dough. This is worth con­sid­er­ing if you set the timer for overnight bak­ing. There­fore, before buy­ing, be sure to check the lev­el of noise gen­er­at­ed by the stove.

Amount of bread

Depend­ing on size, ovens can cook from 500g loaves to 1.5kg or more. For one or two peo­ple, 500g of bread per day will be enough, but for large fam­i­lies, more will be required. Some mod­els allow you to choose the weight of the fin­ished prod­uct.

Bread machine body

Bread­mak­ers can have a plas­tic case or stain­less steel met­al case. In gen­er­al, this does not affect the qual­i­ty of the device in any way. How­ev­er, plas­tic bread machines will be cheap­er and eas­i­er to trans­port, so if you plan to trans­port the oven, for exam­ple, to the coun­try house, or change its place in the kitchen, then keep this in mind.

The steel case is more durable, although it requires more main­te­nance, as fin­ger­prints can remain on the steel.

The con­trol pan­el can be mechan­i­cal or touch. The touch one is more con­ve­nient in the sense that it is not afraid of hit­ting the test. How­ev­er, it must be equipped with a lock­ing func­tion so that chil­dren or pets can­not acci­den­tal­ly turn on the oven.

The mechan­i­cal con­trol pan­el is more com­mon and safer. How­ev­er, you need to be care­ful with it and avoid the ingress of for­eign sub­stances.

Bread machine models

A small bud­get mod­el of the Midea BM-210BC‑W bread mak­er is suit­able for those who do not want to spend a large amount, but want to be able to eas­i­ly and sim­ply pre­pare deli­cious home­made bread. The oven pre­pares loaves weigh­ing from 700 to 1000 gr with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of adjust­ment, square shape. At a low price, it has a lot of func­tions: delayed start, dough knead­ing, bread crust col­or selec­tion, tem­per­a­ture main­te­nance, etc. In total, the oven has 13 cook­ing pro­grams that allow you to cook French rolls, jam, yogurt and rich bread.

The plas­tic case weighs a lit­tle and does not heat up dur­ing bak­ing. The stove itself, due to its size, does not take up much space in the kitchen.

On the body there is a win­dow for mon­i­tor­ing the degree of cook­ing. The mechan­i­cal con­trol pan­el with a screen makes it easy to select the desired mode and set the timer. All in all, the Midea BM-210BC‑W looks impres­sive, is easy to use and is per­fect for any home.

Gem­lux GL-BM-599 is a large and high-qual­i­ty bread mak­er that com­bines rich func­tion­al­i­ty and reli­a­bil­i­ty. The body of the mod­el is made of stain­less steel, which pro­vides not only a spec­tac­u­lar appear­ance, but also resis­tance to mechan­i­cal dam­age. The lid is made of chromed steel and con­tains a cook­ing win­dow and a mechan­i­cal con­trol pan­el with a large dis­play.

The oven from Gem­lux allows you to choose one of three col­ors of bread crust and two weight options — 750g and 900g. In addi­tion, with this oven you can delay the start up to 13 hours, heat or main­tain the tem­per­a­ture of the fin­ished bread for 60 min­utes. This oven real­ly has every­thing you need. You can cook with any of the 12 pre­set pro­grams and cre­ate your own pro­gram using the DIY but­ton. At the same time, the oven is equipped with a dis­penser that will auto­mat­i­cal­ly add nuts or dried fruits to the dough dur­ing the knead­ing process.

In addi­tion to mak­ing a vari­ety of breads, includ­ing yeast-free, gluten-free and whole grain, the Gem­lux bread machine is capa­ble of mak­ing jams and mar­malades.

The bowl has a thick non-stick coat­ing, and the kit includes every­thing you need, includ­ing a mea­sur­ing spoon and a mea­sur­ing cup. All this at a very rea­son­able price.

Pana­son­ic SD-2510WTS allows you to bake flour prod­ucts weigh­ing from 700 to 1000g. The body of the device is made of durable plas­tic and includes a touch pan­el with a dis­play and a list of pro­grams. Dur­ing cook­ing, heat-resis­tant plas­tic does not heat up at all. In total, the oven includes 13 cook­ing pro­grams. Among the use­ful func­tions of this stove from Pana­son­ic, one can sin­gle out the abil­i­ty to delay the start for up to 13 hours, the abil­i­ty to knead the dough for var­i­ous dish­es, pre­pare jam or jam, and choose the col­or of the crust of the prod­uct.

The bak­ing dish is designed for square prod­ucts and is equipped with a non-stick coat­ing, which makes it very easy to clean. In gen­er­al, the oven from Pana­son­ic has a com­fort­able ergonom­ic design and styl­ish appear­ance. With it you can make reg­u­lar bread, gluten-free, yeast-free, rich and much more. And besides, the mod­el has a use­ful func­tion of accel­er­at­ed bak­ing.

A bread mak­er is one of the mod­ern kitchen appli­ances designed to make our life more con­ve­nient and the cook­ing process eas­i­er. If you are con­sid­er­ing pur­chas­ing a bread mak­er, be sure to check out all the options avail­able on the mar­ket to make the most informed choice. This is how you can enjoy deli­cious fresh bread from your own recipe every day.