10 out of 10 people found this review helpful.
My first bread machine, and I'm happy with it
Date of Review: Dec 14, 2007
The Bottom Line: I would buy this machine again, because it met or exceeded my expectations. I loved the rosemary bread and the dill bread. Many recipes to try...
I've always been happy with the quality of the Cuisinart brand, and after reviewing the features of the various bread machines, I settled on this one. The machine is easy to use, easy to clean, and produces some nice bread. The instruction manual has a lot of bread recipes in it, and I've tried a few with good results. The controls are easy to understand.
I bought a few books of bread machine recipes, and found something that I'm a little confused about. The recipes in the Cuisinart book usually call for a little over 2 tsp. of yeast, while the ones in the books I bought call for a little over 1 tsp. The bread textures definitely differed, with more yeast giving bigger holes, but either is acceptable to me. I do recommend buying other books to supplement the recipes in the bread machine manual.
I normally just bake with the kneading paddle in, and I spray the paddle with a little bit of cooking spray. So far, the paddle has always stayed in the pan when I dump the bread out to cool. A little water usually helps remove the paddle while I'm cleaning up, but it's not too difficult to remove. Even with my big hands, I can reach in to pull it off. The most difficult part of cleaning the paddle is brushing out the hole where it attaches to the spindle, but a small brush, or even a tightly-rolled paper towel lets me wipe the debris out.
One thing I didn't particularly like, but don't know any way around, is the fact that the loaf pan has the spindle assembly in a small housing underneath. This is not a big problem, but since I never load the ingredients with the loaf pan in the machine, I find that it makes the loaf pan overly easy to tip over, spilling your ingredients and making a mess. Yes, I found this out the hard way, so I just have to be more careful. I think that wrapping a dish towel around the housing might improve the balance.
Overall, I like the machine, and I can make breads not available in my grocery store. Even the honey wheat bread worked just fine (although I think it could have used more honey).
Cooking.com
