Nearly perfect breadmaker

A few years ago breadmakers exploded onto the scene and everybody had one. We probably had 2 or 3 different ones.

The ones we had all wound up on shelves.........in the garage, or given to friends or relatives. The biggest most annoying problem, I think, was when the mixing paddle got stuck in the finished bread loaf and was a real pain to remove.

Now after producing 8 perfect, different loaves of bread including a date/nut bread loaf and a black russian bread with strong coffee, cocoa, molasses and two kinds of seeds in the recipe, I think we've found the winner.

What made me invest another $129.00 in another breadmaker after the others wound up gathering dust almost as soon as they were out of the box? Well, I guess it was the bargain price for this top of the line machine and partly the flowery prose in the online advertising at Woot.com Now don't everbody go rushing to that website, they sell one single item every 24 hours and that item, from a complete computer to a cheap toy is all they sell for that day.

The features of this unit are impressive starting with producing a horizontal loaf of bread unlike older machines which made a vertical, sometimes round loaf.

You have a choice of three sized loafs 1 1/2, 2 or 2 1/2 pound loaf. There are cycles for White, french, fruit & nuts, quick bread/cake, whole wheat, super rapid (59 minute), sour dough, dough, jam and bake only. There are some real difference in these cycles, for example the whole wheat cycle warms the bread pan and lets the ingredients rest for about 30 minutes and gives the flour time to absorb the liquid ingredients. All this before it starts to mix them.

There are no buttons as such on this machine. There's a big, NOT very easy to read, NOT backlit LCD touch screen dominating the top of the unit. The very complete very easy to understand owner's manual takes you thru every step on your way to a great final product. There's even a video included. There are 300 bread settings in the internal memory but don't worry, they deal with variables like crust color, quick bake and whether or not to add ingredients thru the built in automatic dispenser.

There's a 24 hour delay bake timer, set it for the hour you want the bread to be ready and the machine will start 1 to 4 hours prior.

There's an always visible touch screen "pause" button.

During one loaf we had a 35 minute power failure. Due to another feature the machine picked up where it left off and the loaf turned out perfect.

Of course the baking pan is non-stick and there's a viewing window to check the progress of your creation.

The only place they missed the boat with this one is that the LCD screen is a bit hard to read. Most kitchens are well lit enough so that it's only a small problem.

And guess what. The mixing paddle has yet to get stuck in the loaf.