Bread machine

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A bread machine, or breadmaker

A bread making machine or breadmaker is a home appliance for turning raw ingredients into baked bread. It consists of a bread pan (or “tin”), at the bottom of which are one or more built-in paddles, mounted in the center of a small special-purpose oven. This small oven is usually controlled by a simple built-in computer using settings input via a control panel. Most bread machines have different cycles for different kinds of dough—including white bread, whole grain, European-style (sometimes labelled “French“), and dough-only (for pizza dough and shaped loaves baked in a conventional oven). Many also have a timer to allow the bread machine to activate without operator attendance, and some high-end models allow the user to program a custom cycle.

History[edit]

Raku Raku Pan Da the “World’s first automatic bread-making machine”

Although bread machines for mass production had been made for industrial use long before, the first self-contained breadmaker for household use was released in Japan in 1986 by the Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (now Panasonic) based on a year of research by project engineers and software developer Ikuko Tanaka who trained with the head baker at Osaka International Hotel to learn how to optimally knead bread, and involved adding special ribs inside the machine.^[1]

A decade later they had become popular in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States. While not viable for commercial use due to the fixed loaf shape and the limited duty cycle, bread machines are very suitable for home use, producing their best results when dealing with kneaded doughs.^[2]

Use and features[edit]

To create a loaf of bread, ingredients are measured into the bread pan in a specified order (usually liquids first, with solid ingredients layered on top) and the pan is then placed in the breadmaker. The order of ingredients is important because the instant yeast used in breadmakers is activated by contact with water, so the yeast and the water must be kept apart until the program starts.

The machine takes a few hours to make a loaf of bread. The ingredients are first rested and brought up to optimal temperature. The ingredients are then turned into a dough by stirring with a paddle. The dough is then proofed using ideal temperature control, and then baked.

Once the bread has been baked, the pan is extracted from the breadmaker, leaving a small indentation or hole from the rod the paddle attaches to. The shape of the finished loaf is often considered unusual, with many early bread machines producing a vertically oriented, square or cylindrical loaf very different from commercial breads; however, more recent units generally have a more traditional-appearing horizontal pan. Some bread machines are in the standard rectangle shape two lb loaf using two paddles. One of the Zojirushi models even has a heating element in the lid to brown the crust.^[3]

Bread machine kneading dough, and a baked loaf of bread.

Bread machine recipes are often somewhat smaller than standard bread recipes, and are sometimes standardized based on the capacity of the machine’s pan; most common in the United States market are 1.5 lb/700g units, and the majority of recipes are written for that capacity; however, 2 lb/900g units are not uncommon either. Packaged bread mixes are available, specifically designed for breadmakers, containing premeasured ingredients including flour and yeast, as well as flavorings and occasionally dough conditioners. Only water usually needs to be added. Bread machines generally do not deal well with non-wheat flours, so any recipe that requires a substantial addition of a grain such as rye or corn that lacks gluten will prove difficult at best in a bread machine, as will any dough with unusually large amounts of liquid (such as ciabatta).

Generally, homemade bread goes stale faster than bread from a commercial baker because the former does not include preservatives. However, it is possible (though a bit more difficult) to use a natural leaven or a pre-ferment in breadmaker dough recipes if the starter is sufficiently fast to rise. Sourdough contains a symbiotic culture of yeast and lactobacteria; the yeast provides some flavor as well as carbon dioxide to provide lift, while lactic acid produced by sourdough’s lactobacteria greatly preserves bread, as well as affecting its flavor, while pre-ferments provide some of the same benefits as a sourdough culture with the greater predictability of domesticated baker’s yeast.

Breadmakers are often equipped with a timer to control when the breadmaking begins. This allows them, for example, to be loaded in the evening but only begin baking early in the morning, to produce a freshly baked loaf for breakfast. They can also be set only to make dough, for instance to be used to make pizza. Some can also be set to make other things besides bread, such as jam, pasta dough, udon or mochi, a kind of Japanese rice cake. One of the most recent innovations is the facility to add nuts and fruit during the kneading process automatically from a tray.^[4]

Traditionally, breadmakers take between three and four hours to bake a loaf. However recently “fast bake” modes have become common additions, many of which are able to produce a loaf in under an hour. The bread is generally not of as good quality as that produced by a longer program, but for many users this is a useful feature.

Some breadmakers sold in the 1990s had vertical pans, some horizontal. Today, the vast majority available retail make horizontal loaves. For that reason, they produce a smaller, shorter loaf than their predecessors. It is more difficult to mix a long, horizontal loaf because the ends are distant from the mixer-paddle and gravity does not assist the distribution of the dough. Some machines attempt a better kneading by using two paddles, one at each end. The vertical loaf machine may require a higher powered motor, because the entire mass of the dough-ball is on the paddle as it kneads the dough against the nearby sides of the loaf-pan. Economy in production may account for the manufacturer’s preference towards horizontal loaf-pans. Finally, a vertical loaf-pan yields a uniform slice from end to end of the loaf rather than a loaf that is smaller at the ends.

Most of the best bread machines have a cold wall which usually protects the surface getting hotter during the baking process.

Breadmaking machines

by Chris Woodford. Last updated: October 15, 2020.

Freshly made bread is the best thing since—well, the best thing since sliced bread! The only trouble is, it takes time and effort. Most people have never made bread in their lives and would never dream of doing so, but the recent invention of automatic breadmaking machines has started to change all that. Now, millions are turning their kitchens into bakeries and enjoy their own freshly baked loaf each day at a fraction of the cost they’d pay in a store. What’s the big attraction of bread-making machines? What are they like and how exactly do they work?

Photo: A typical electronic breadmaker. Unfortunately, this early model has an opaque lid so you can’t watch the ingredients slowly transform into a delicious loaf, but most models now have glass lids so you can watch progress in real time. A glass lid means you can spot any problems and abort your baking session; with an opaque lid, you might have to wait five hours to discover that your loaf’s a disaster (something a glass lid might have revealed several hours earlier). The little dark spot in the center of the lid is a vent through which you’ll see steam (and smell the aroma of freshly baked bread) escaping!

How to make bread (the old way)

Bread is one of the world’s oldest and most versatile foods. Just think of all the different types of bread (everything from a basic sliced white loaf to a really fantastic ciabatta or foccacia) and all the different ways we use dough (from simple loaves to rolls and pizza bases). Delicious!

Eating bread is an awful lot easier than making it—and that’s because bread-making is necessarily a time-consuming process. Even with the help of an automatic breadmaker, it still takes several hours to make a loaf because it takes that long for the yeast to do its job.

Photo: Making decent bread involves following a sequence of well-defined steps—and that’s why a machine can do it just as well as a person: 1) Mixing; 2) Kneading; 3) Rising; 4) Knocking down and proving; 5) Baking. Photos by Jose Jaen, Dylan Butler, Timothy C. Roache Jr., Adam York, Kyle D. Gahlau, all courtesy of US Navy.

The basic process of making a loaf involves five distinct stages:

Mixing: You take flour, yeast, water, fat, sugar, and salt and mix them together to make dough.
Kneading: You have to beat and bash the dough around to make it stretchy and elastic. Without kneading, your dough won’t rise and you won’t get a decent loaf.
Rising: Now you leave your dough in a warm place to rise for an hour or more. During this stage, the yeast does its job. Air enters the mixture and makes the dough plump up to about twice the size.
Knocking down and proving: Some bakers believe you should repeat the rising process a second time to produce a more even loaf. First you bash the dough about to knock the air out of it (which is called knocking down). Then you leave the dough to rise a second time in a tin (which is called proving).
Baking: Finally, you put the dough in a tin, place the tin in your oven, and bake.

How a breadmaking machine works

Photo: Looking straight down into the breadmaker with the lid open. You can see it’s really just a compact oven. There are two heating elements at the side for baking the bread. The round thing in the middle at the bottom is the electric motor that does the kneading.

The great thing about an automatic breadmaker is that it does all these processes for you. A breadmaking machine is essentially a compact electric oven that will hold a single, large bread tin. The tin is a bit special: it has an axle at the bottom that connects into an electric motor underneath. A small metal paddle clicks onto the axle inside the tin. The axle is held by a waterproof seal so none of your bread mixture will escape.

Photos: Top: The kneading paddle in place at the bottom of the tin. Note how the tin has a useful wire handle so you can haul it up out of the machine while it’s still hot. Bottom: What the kneading paddle looks like when you remove it. As this turns around at speed, it flings the dough around and kneads it.

So how does it all work? First, you put your paddle in the tin. With the tin out of the oven, you measure out your ingredients and load them up. All you have to do then is pop your tin in the oven, select the program you want using the electronic control panel, close the lid, and wait. If your breadmaker has a glass lid, you can watch what it’s doing. If the lid is opaque, you’ll have to listen and use your imagination. One of the first things you’ll hear is the machine’s motor whirring as the paddle spins round, kneading the dough. Then everything will go quiet during the rising phase. Then you’ll hear more kneading and another period of quiet during the proving. Finally, the oven will switch on, you’ll see steam coming up through the exhaust vent, and you’ll start to smell the delicious aroma of baking bread a few minutes later. The basic breadmaking process is largely automatic, but most machines come with recipe books for making more advanced types of dough.

Some breadmakers have other features, such as a built-in memory so they can survive short power outages (“blackouts”) of a few minutes: they remember what they were doing and continue when the power returns. Most breadmaking machines also have the ability to make a delayed start, so you can put the ingredients in before you go to bed and wake up to a fresh-baked loaf in the morning. (I

Best Bread Maker UK