BREADMAN CORNER BAKERY BREADMAKER - I am the breadman Goo Goo Ga Joob!

I love food, I love to eat (unfortunately) and I love to make it. Nothing rocks my world more than - oh, say, some fresh bread. Why then did it take me this long to get around to picking up a bread maker is beyond me. But lo, there was a sale on Breadmakers at the local Fred Meyers and me and my roommate succumbed to a 150 dollar impulse buy. No research, no comparison shopping - on the surface, this could have turned out to be a train wreck in the making.

Surprisingly, we didn’t get burned at all. I've been happy with my Breadman TR888 Corner Bakery ever since.

The Breadman TR888 Corner Bakery 2-Pound Programmable Bread Maker (hereafter known as the TBTCB2PPBM for short. No, wait -that's still too much of a mouthfull. We'll just call him Bready for shorter) takes the muss and fuss and prep work out of making bread. Mixing, kneading and baking - boom, all done in one easy to remove pan. Throw some stuff into a pan, push a button and come back four hours later to warm, tasty breadish goodness.

Hmmmm. . . . bread. No! Musn't succumb to rapture of the bread!

You can do loaves in two sizes, the one pound loaf and the two pounder, and there are all kinds of settings that give you a darker crust all the way up a lighter one. In addition to bread, you get a couple of attachments for churning your own butter. Add some cream to the pan and volia! Nummy butter! A couple more buttons and you can get pudding, cake mixes (and even cake, if you were so bold). Sweet breads, dough, dessert, fudge, whole grains - I was shocked by the wide range of what the machine can do.

There's also a programmable countdown built right in, so if you gotta have some warm bread with breakfast, figure out four hours before you get up in the morning, set the timer and let Bready work his magic overnight.

The instructions are really easy to follow. There was a little bit learning curve and plenty of failed experiments (Baked goods? No, those were baked BADS!) at the beginning , but after four or five tries, I managed to get the basic bread making down. Now it takes about 15 minuets to put together the ingredients before I'm ready to go, and I've managed to nail pretty much a 100% success rate. Any Baked Bads purely come from sloppiness and user error now.

Bready is a really sturdy machine, and he's really easy to clean and use. There's an small touch control panel on the top where you punch in your selections and a small LED screen to show your settings. In the center of the lid is a small plastic window that lets you gaze down in wonder upon your breadish goodness and watch the baking process unfold. Okay, it's kind of goofy and childish, but I get a kick out of peeking in from time to time.

I guess the only real downside to homemade bread - and this isn't the machines fault - but that without all the chemicals and preservatives, my bread only lasts a couple of days before it starts to get stale. Since a load lasts me about 4 days at work, this balances out fine - but if you're looking for some long term storage, forget it. (Or if you figure out how to keep the bread fresh long term, let me know willya?)

THE BOTTOM LINE -
Honestly while the pudding and cake features are all well and good, I only really use my bread machine for one purpose - making bread. Now that I know my way around the machine, putting together bread mixings is quick quick like a bunny and easy as pie (um, easy as bread). The four hour lead time kind of takes the spontaneity out of having bread which is kind of a hassle, but that's not really Bready's fault is it? He takes as long as needs, and he does the job well. What more could I ask from a breadmaker?