Are bread machines worth it? Can you tailor the bread to be either like large soft English sliced loaf, or crusty farmer style if you fancy it?

I'd opt for an egg banjo with brown sauce

Or a sausage bacon and egg sarnie

I don't have a bread maker here but I do in London. I'm lazy and just buy the packets of "for the breadmaker" flour mix which includes the yeast etc - you just add some water.

it's wonderful in the Winter - set the timer and wake up to the smell of freshly baked bread. Get up, shower, remove loaf and eat whilst still totally fresh and warm, all without having to go outside to the bakers.

They cost aroud £50. Mine has a compartment where I could add stuff such as nuts, dates, whatever) which are added into the bread at the right time. If it weren't so big I'd bring it with me here.

What model have you got old chap?

I used to cook these for a living



best breakkies (when done by a good little chef like myself)

I can't remember, Richdog. I bought it a few years ago (and it's in London whereas I'm here in case you're wondering why I don't just go and have a look!).

Just searched ... it looks the same as this one :
http://www.electricshopping.com/shop...ID=1761&cID=47

Except it's all white and I didn't think it was a Breville. Either they used to sell it under a different name (as I say, I've had it a few years) or it is a Breville and I just forgot.

Do get one with a dispenser thingy - you can add all sorts of exciting things into your bread.

To me, completely. If mine broke, I would sob gently then get another exactly the same imported regardless of horrid Swiss customs charges.

All bread machines are not created equal: mine's a Panasonic and is the one most people swear by, although I've heard good things about Morphy Richards too. The ones they give away with catalogue orders or sell for £20 are rubbish; if you're lucky 1 loaf in 2 will work, whereas mine gives utterly consistent, perfect results EVERY time. I've had it for years now, longer than I can remember.

The crust tends to be on the softer side, bit like the 'in store baked' bread you'd get in UK supermarkets (but not soft and squidgy like plastic square bread). You can't get really crusty crusts in the machine, but could make the dough then take it out and blast in in a hot oven instead of cooking in the machine. There are programs for all this sort of thing. It's also fantastic at pizza dough - 45 mins, tip on work surface, roll out, top, in oven, 'home made' fresh pizza in an hour, most of which you spend doing other stuff.

I have a standard, everyday loaf as detailed above, the mix of white and granary (the toast from this is off the planet terrific) but dabble in other types, like the French Bread program (which produces something like a baguette, but in a loaf shape).

It works out very cheap; haven't costed it exactly but a loaf big enough for a greedy family of four will do lunch, a bit of afternoon nibbling and toast the next morning, for a little over a franc, I guess - one bag of bread flour makes almost two large loaves, and costs very little from places like Aldi.

And there's all sorts of fiddling about with nuts, seeds, cheese, bacon, onion, raisins, berries, spices, etc which can be done. I do a Christmas morning special with raisins, cranberries and cinnamon, replacing the water with orange juice, which comes out like a giant spiced currant bun. Slice, toast, spread with gently oozing butter...

Rats. Curse this low carb diet.

kodokan

__________________
'Chance favours only the prepared mind.'

kodokan as awesome as that post was, you also shall recieve an e-slap for not naming the model... is it this one? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-SD...3450448&sr=1-1

Sorry, it didn't seem really important as mine is the model before that (SD253, I think) and it's really just a choice of with or without the automatic raisin dispenser. But of course you didn't know that (and I've put a v helpful link at the bottom of this post to make amends ).

But yes, if I was buying nowadays, that would be mine. I think it's just a cosmetic update. Sometimes Amazon does deals on them, especially in the run up to Christmas - I got my parents the non-auto one for about £40 a couple of years ago.

The raisin thing is good - when it's automatic it's all part of the chosen program so it releases the raisins/nuts/goodies just before the last mix before baking (if you put them in at the beginning before all the mixing/ kneading, then the blade bashes them to pieces). Otherwise, a bleeper goes off to tell you to tip in the raisins, but that of course relies on you paying attention and being around 2.5 hours after you switched it on. Really, go automatic.

If you go here, you can download the operating instructions/ recipe book, and have a skim to see if the recipes are the sort of thing you like the sound of:

http://www.panasonic.co.uk/html/en_G...l#anker_220239

kodokan

__________________
'Chance favours only the prepared mind.'

Tenuous link moment

Constructing an English breakkie transforms to best bread maker

Its ok I have the info I need now, and we all know discussions sometimes go on a brief tangent.

We're just being thorough; it's a bit like M&S, and their obsession to backtracking to choosing the type of soil, what wood the support sticks can be made of, etc, when suppliers can plant their tomatoes.

And there is a recipe for cheese and bacon bread. Which is sort of breakfasty. Yes, that's it - make a cheese and bacon loaf, slice it, and use it to make Eggy Bread (French Toast really, but if I call it that it'll be off-topic ).

I like the swift way in which you got this back on topic

And another thing - the butter here is all wrong for toast. And scrambled eggs. And anything else, really. Because it doesn't have salt in it. I end up having to grind my own sea salt into it, just to get that delicious crunch of biting into a tiny salt crystal and feeling it explode in the butter's creaminess.

Additional tip:

The butcher's on Albisriederplatz sells decent schweinsbratwurst (including a herby one which we grilled on Xmas eve) and they will slice bacon to your specified thickness - which made great sarnies on Xmas day morning. The woman serving speaks flawless English (well...with a bit of an American accent but you can't have everything) too.

Cheers,
Nick

You use salted butter for cooking?

But how do you control the level of saltiness as the rate the egg mix reduces will be uncertain, as well as the size of the eggs.

BTW - Coop sells butter with fleur de sel.

I went to Bierfalken in Zürich on Monday night. I had the magnificent Bierfalkentopf there - a large tureen filled with spätzle in a cheese-cream sauce, unbreaded schnitzel and speck. The speck though is cut thickly and really does a very very good job of coming close to smoked streaky bacon. So yes, it is possible.

Sprinkle Maldon salt flakes (available in Globus) on to your buttery toast.
Flaky and not crystally is good.

Probably anyone who didn't grow up in continental Europe does.

When I first encountered unsalted butter as a teenager in France many years ago, I salted it at first, but then dropped the habit, and haven't bought salted butter since.

Tom

Bacon, sausages and black pudding you can get at www.naturally-orkney.com AND they're the real McCoy !