Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)My mother taught me to make homemade bread as a child and I have been making it ever since, but a breadmaker certainly is easier. I've had two, a Magic Chef which stopped working after I accidentally left the pan soaking overnight (the mechanism that turns the paddle won't budge), and a Zojirushi, which I now use every week, and don't leave soaking in the sink. (I chose the Zojirushi because it had good reviews and because I have their rice steamer and love it.)
Features I like: Double paddles. This is absolutely the way to go if you want a horizontal loaf, otherwise some of the flour can get stuck in a corner and not get mixed up. You can solve this by scraping the sides during mixing, but having to do that sort of defeats the purpose of a breadmaker.
Another thing I like is the "Homemade" setting, which allows you to customize the cycle times. The default is for French Bread, which, incidentally, comes out very well. One caution, their recipe calls for 3 teaspoons of yeast, which caused it to overrise. I now use 2 teaspoons and get great results. Also, the "default" setting for Homemade/French Bread wasn't set correctly on mine at first, but the instruction manual listed the correct settings and it was easy to reprogram. Good instruction manual, by the way.
One other nice feature is the preheat cycle. The trickiest part with bread machines is getting the right amount of yeast for the machine's timed rise cycles. Cold liqueds slow down yeast action, warm ones speed it up. I've found that the preheat cycle helps give more uniform results. (Age and amount of yeast affects it too, but the breadmachine can't compensate for that.)
Most of the other features, like jam and cake settings, I never use.
Disappointments: The window gets steamed up during processing and opening the cover causes it to pause so you can't really watch what it is doing. Also, the delay timer only works with the "Basic" bread setting. I wanted to set it to have French bread ready when I came home, and couldn't.
The thing I use most: The "Dough" setting. I prefer to let the breadmaker mix everything up for me and do all the initial risings, and then throw it in a pan for the last rising and bake it myself. This way the paddles don't get baked into the bottom of the loaf, and I don't have to worry about over or under rising. Honestly, it is the yeast that causes most problems people have with breadmakers. Old yeast, or not enough, and your bread comes out like a brick. Too much and it either overrises and sticks to the top, as it did the first time I made French bread with 3 tsp. of yeast, or it caves in during baking and you have a U-shaped top. (If it rises but the top is flat, rather than rounded, it's not the yeast. You probably have too much liqued or too little flour - adjust accordingly.)
I don't use mixes, so I can't comment on that, but I have an electric wheat grinder and often use fresh ground whole wheat (which they don't recommend), and this breadmachine handles it beautifully. I like being able to use all healthy ingredients, like whole wheat instead of white flour, and honey instead of refined sugar. In this case though it does need extra yeast, since the whole wheat flour is heavier.
I recommended this breadmaker to both my step-mother and my best friend, so I guess that's a pretty high recommendation. (My mother still does it by hand. Maybe someday I'll get her to try a machine.)
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Zojirushi BBCC-V20 Home Bakery Traditional BreadmakerOne of the most wonderful sensory experiences has to be the smell of baking bread. It nourishes the soul and warms the heart, just as the finished product nourishes and warms the body. This bread maker not only makes a splendid horizontal loaf, it's easy to use and clean, meaning it won't join the dud appliances gathering dust while they wait for the next yard sale.
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