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This Hamilton Beach bread machine features 12 cycles ranging from gluten-free bread to jam.
By Kara Reinhardt, Cheapism.com
For a holiday meal with all the trimmings, fresh-baked bread and rolls beat store-bought every time. Yet who can find time for all that mixing and kneading and baking amid all the shopping and wrapping and decking the halls? Therein lies the appeal of a bread maker: Just feed it a few ingredients and press start. Unfortunately this is one of those fancy gadgets that can easily cost a couple of hundred dollars and wind up forgotten in the back of a cabinet. But depending on what kind of bread you typically buy, the machine may pay for itself with regular use. A loaf of homemade bread doesn’t cost much more than the flour, salt, and yeast that go into it, plus a pinch of time and a dash of electricity. And that’s not to mention taste or nutrition.
Below are Cheapism’s top picks for bread machines under $60.
- The Hamilton Beach HomeBaker 29881 (starting at $50) appeals to beginners with easy operation and reliable results, according to online reviews. It makes 1.5- or 2-pound loaves and has 12 settings, including cycles for gluten-free bread and jam. It also features an alert to tell you when to add extra ingredients such as fruit and nuts, if a recipe calls for them. (Where to buy)
- The West Bend Hi-Rise 41300 (starting at $59) makes loaves of four different sizes ranging from 1 to 2.5 pounds. Among the 11 settings is one that’s typically found on higher-end models. It lets users customize each step of the process, from kneading to baking. Reviewers commend this machine’s ability to produce light loaves even from dense ingredients, perhaps thanks to a design with dual kneading/mixing blades instead of a single paddle. (Where to buy)
- The Oster Expressbake CKSTBRTW20 (starting at $59) offers nine settings and three sizes to select: 1, 1.5, and 2 pounds. Consumers who have posted reviews online appreciate that it can make a loaf in less than an hour. (Where to buy)
- The Breadman TR520 (starting at $59) consistently bakes bread with a pleasing texture and flavor, according to reviews. Users can choose among eight functions and three sizes from 1 to 2 pounds. A bell signals when it’s time to add in nuts or fruit. (Where to buy)
The different settings on these machines include various kinds of bread -- basic white, whole wheat, French, sweet. (A baker and author writing in The Guardian recommends tweaking the recipes that come with the machine before consulting external sources.) Other settings yield dough for making things like pizza and rolls, and express cycles turn out loaves in less time. Users can adjust a separate crust control to light, medium, or dark.
The models listed above produce rectangular loaves similar in shape to those you’d find at the grocery store, with one exception. The Hamilton Beach HomeBaker makes taller, squarer bread. All the baking pans are nonstick for easy cleanup.
One additional perk of all four bread makers: Users can program these machines to delay the start of the bread-making process, so a fresh loaf finishes in time for dinner or first thing in the morning, ready for toast.
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Dude, seriously? A machine? Want the uber-cheap way to do it? Make it on your own - save the fifty - sixty dollars and make your own...by hand or by mixer if you have one. Takes three hours. You learn patience and you get the honor of saying "I did this." I've been making my own bread and tortillas, cakes and pies for months from scratch and by hand (with the help of my handy-dandy Kitchenaid mixer) and I've never felt better about things.
Have a gander at what they put in bread nowadays. Mine has like 5 things: water, yeast, flour, butter, sugar, salt, for sandwich bread, and then herbs, oil, and kosher salt if I'm making a dinner loaf.
Yes - at times it seems tedious, and at times I have exactly zero patience to want to do everything it takes to make it...but that first bite off a fresh loaf with a little homemade butter? Such sweet reward!
So save your money: go to the grocery, buy bread flour, yeast, old fashioned sticks of salted butter, a wee thing of sugar, some kosher salt...go home and do it yourself like our grandparents did...I think you'll be amazed at what you can accomplish - and you'll realize just how silly buying a "cheap" machine is.
"Let them eat cake" as long as they make it themselves and don't bother us as we set sail on our yachts.
Or you can just buy it like rich people do. What's your point? So far it looks like you just want to bash yacht owners.
Yacht yacht you are correct. These are the type of people who can pay their fair share of taxes which they have not for years. Just like people who mooch off other peoples health insurance which has led to ObamaCare. People in this nation had better learn there is no free ride anywhere and people had better step up and start contributing or the less that 50% of Americans who do pay taxes will one day say hell no to footing the bill all by themselves. So yes I am bashing fat cats - I hold them in the same light as you God the Mittster holds 47% of the American people - who are the biggest moochers and leeches. Remember as wealth is concentrated at the top there are more and more people at the bottom getting angrier and angrier - look at the middle east - look at Greece - look at Spain - look in the mirror for Christ's sake!
You do realize the article is about bread machines? Off-topic much?
You are the one that opened the door to off topic comments.
You're the one who started in on yacht owners in your opening remark.
There is NO bread machine that makes bread any better or CHEAPER then you can purchase at Publix Supermarkets, Sams Club and even Walmart. Some of the worst bread is baked at Winn Dixie, Sweet Bay and Kroger's.
I have been using a bread maker since the first came out more than 20 years ago. The average loaf of bread takes me less than a minute to make. But the real treat is in the winter. I put everything in the bread maker in the morning while my coffee is making. Then I set the timer so that at dinner time I have a loaf of fresh bread. But the real treat is coming home to a house that smells like baking bread.
I occasionally make scratch loaf breads. But simple one-rise breads or batter breads are never worth the trouble. Double- and triple-rise breads are very time consuming because of the waiting for the bread to rise and punching it down. (If you don't punch it down, it isn't real bread.) A triple rise bread can take as much as 4 hours of neartly continuous effort to make, but all bread makers make triple-rise breads unless you tell it to do a "quick bread."
I do have three tips: 1) ALWAYS put in the ingredients IN THE ORDER LISTED. This is quite important. 2) ALWAYS use fresh yeast (or double the yeast if you have doubt.) Yeast has a fairly long shelf life, but it very temperature sensitive and deteriorates slowly even before it has expired. 3) Bread flours give better results. ALWAYS use them when called for in a recipe.
I thought they found a way to make money cheap
No.. you are thinking of the Federal Reserve.
"The models listed above produce rectangular loaves similar in shape to those you’d find at the grocery store, with one exception. The Hamilton Beach HomeBaker makes taller, squarer bread."
Reading the links, the loaves don't seem to quite make it ot grocery store shape.
Personally, I've used the dough cycle to make bread with my Sunbeam 5891 Breadmaker ($60 at Amazon), then poured the dough into a breadpan and baked it in the oven to get a REAL grocery store shape, plus there's no big indentation for the paddle (or base to the paddle if you remove it) in the finished bread.
For me, the bread machine makes banana bread dough effortlessly and is what I most often use it for as well as dinner rolls or English muffins for Thanksgiving, etc.
Additionally, unless I want dense bread (great to eat with soup), I add 1 tsp of Vital Wheat Gluten for each cup of flour and get a 2 lb sized loaf using 1.5 lb recipe amounts.
Democrats could have passed Single Payer but members of the their party brought it down - people like Backus and Doran who accepted huge campaign donations from the Insurance companies. Both men go over a million dollars - Backus was around 3.5 million and Doran around 1.5. Public Option had more support but Obama couldn't pass that either. But Planned Parenthood put their muscle behind HHS and they got that passed - free abortion for the poor and the rest of us pay for it.