Sunbeam Programmable Bread Maker, White

First I must admit I am a complete novice. I had never even baked cookies in my life. However, I wanted to eat some fresh bread, and healthier bread (I don't like that store breads have like 20+ ingredients) So I researched for a relatively inexpensive breadmaker to try it out. I have only used it 5 times, but wow, I am thoroughly impressed. I was a little overwhelmed with the comments of users and my research that said how important it was to have exact measurements, some people claiming to use a scale instead of measuring cups to get exact numbers, and how a little more or less: sugar, salt, yeast could cause terrible consequences, etc, etc. I am not here to judge bread experts, since I am a complete novice, but in my 5 loaf experience, I have found the statements above to be false. By mistake I added 1/4 of a teaspoon more to a recipe (active dry yeast and instant yeast have a 1.25 conversion rate according to most sites) and the bread came out just fine. On another bread I added a about 1/3 of a cup more liquid (pineapple juice for a very good pineapple bread) and it came out just fine. Oh, I also tried a glutten free bread for a recipe that wasn't for a breadmaker, and the bread came out fine still. Sure it wasn't a perfect rectangle/square, it looked rustic and was as fluffy as any glutten-free bread I've ever tried. In general, I love the ease of use, and don't let bread experts scare you away with those pesky exact measurements. Just try to keep it within what the recipes call for, but you don't have to use any fancy scales or worry about an extra gram of salt falling in the pan. The machine talks about a precise order of ingredients - this too does not matter at all if you're making the bread right away. Feel free to put the yeast first with the liquid, in fact you can let it "activate" even if its instant if you want, then add the flour, or add the flour first and then the liquid - again none of this matters at all. However, it could be a good practice to do the liquid->dry->yeast order for when you want to use the time delay feature - its only important then. Also, did I mention this product is super easy to clean? The convenience is simply great. The only negative thing I can say about this machine is that the LCD is of very poor quality, and you can barely read it under a bright kitchen light. A few more notes: - Using a kill-a-watt to test it, the machine uses between 3 and 6 cents of electricity in the "basic setting" in almost 3 hours, depending on peak hours and settings. So - Whole Wheat bread flour is awesome - makes incredibly fluffy bread! (Even my local supermarket carried it - WINCO for those in the northwest) So what did a complete novice bake successfully? - The super cheap but good white bread. (costs about $0.38 cents to make a 1.5lb loaf, including electricity. Even cheaper if you used all purpose flour, but I have liked my results with bread flour so I'll be sticking with it - specially the whole wheat one). White bread flour, water, a little salt, yeast. Used the basic setting, and medium crust color. - Pineapple bread (I decided to add half a cup of pineapple in addition to what the recipe specified, and it turn out just fine). Whole wheat bread flour, sugar, pineapple juice, butter, 1 egg, yeast. This one was about 1.10 or so to make (most of the cost from the pineapple for the juice and fruit, fruit is expensive :/. But you can easily make this with just pineapple juice and that would take the cost down to like 75 cents per 1.5lb loaf. - Glutten free bread (glutten free bread mixture, soy milk, salt, sugar, yeast, 1/2 cup of eggs (2 full eggs, 2 egg whites) - (update) Banana bread (it was gone in less than 24 hours, and it was made with brown sugar and whole wheat bread flour on the "cake" setting on the machine) - (update) Whole wheat honey bread - really good and filling. All 5 turned out really good. I cannot say enough good things about the whole wheat bread flour. You can easily substitute it 1:1 in any recipe that calls for flour/white bread flour/all purpose flour. Well, I cannot say that with certainty, but I did substitute it 1:1 after doing some research and the result was just fine in all 3 loaves I tried that on. Conclusion: even a novice can make great fresh bread. Note: I will update this as I make more loafs. But so far, despite the poor LCD, this is a great investment of $50 dollars. (as of February 2012) Updated on 2/20/12 with more recipes.

This is my first ever bread machine and let me preface that by saying I do not like to bake as a rule. What I do like is bread of any type as a snack and with meals - bread is simply my favorite food - I'll choose it over sweets every time. I have recently been diagnosed with a severe adult onset allergy to both soy and eggs, so this has put a dent in eating anything made commercially or at the local bakeries - no more store bought bread, rolls, etc for me. In desperation I decided to learn to make my own and figured I would buy the least complicated, least expensive bread machine on the market with the best reputation - I got this one from the Amazon warehouse. My theory was if I hate doing this then I'm not out a huge amount of cash in the overall experiment. Well, it's been almost three weeks and I've made 12 different loaves so far with great success and almost no trouble at all. This machine is extremely easy to use and relatively uncomplicated. The book is pretty simple and straight forward to understand - though the recipes in it aren't to my liking personally, that's just an individual taste issue. The buttons are large and easy to operate & the LCD screen is clear once you read the book and know what each code means. It is a bit hard to see without good light though. My unit came with a plastic cup for flour and a one piece combo teaspoon/tablespoon for salt & sugar. I am using King Arthur Bread Flour only and Fleishmann's bread machine yeast in the jar (I know there are other yeasts out there, but as a newbie, I went with what 3 of my experienced bread baking friends suggested) and I have absolutely no problems at all with any of my breads rising or correctly or having the right texture when cooked. I have also followed the tip of lightly wiping the paddle with a bit of oil before use so that it slips out of my finished loaf easily. The machine does beep after the first rise before it kneads a second time so you can drop your add-ins in before the second mix/knead session. I've done a loaf of bacon-beer-cheese bread, adding the bacon & shredded cheese in this way and everything incorporated into the dough perfectly. (I felt like a magician putting homemade bacon bread on the table and watching my husband's eyes bug out!) I am still learning something every time I use this machine, but it has earned a permanent place on my counter top and for now anyway, I cannot see any reason to spend more money and buy a two hundred dollar version. I can put the ingredients in an have hot, fresh, soft bread ready in three hours or a slightly denser loaf in an hour on the the quick bake setting. Now that I've got the basics down pat it only takes about 10 minutes to pull the ingredients out, put them in the machine, turn it on and clean up. Done. This is actually one of my favorite purchases of the past year. ******One Year Update Feb 2017 ***** I've been making bread on average twice a week with this little machine for a year. It just works right every time with no drama. I have only had one loaf fail to rise correctly and it turned out that I had used 1/2 the yeast needed....so my fault. I've made cranberry bread, pumpkin bread, peanut butter bread and your usual cheese or nut breads without any issues. The best though is buttermilk bread - it always ends up with a creamy, soft texture that is a big hit as a hostess gift. I would absolutely buy this bread machine again.

Lo que esperaba.

Llegó en el tiempo estimado. He de admitir que estaba un poco preocupada por el producto al ver la caja, ya que la noté muy maltratada, sin embargo, el aparato llegó intacto con excepción del manual de uso que llegó roto (la portada totalmente desprendida y rasgada). Me apresuré a estrenarla para asegurarme de que no hubieran problemas en el funcionamiento de la planificadora.