My First Bread Machine

The first thing I bought with my graduation money was an automatic bread maker. I had been wanting one for quite some time; the only choice I had to make was which one to purchase. I decided on a Panasonic model, as it was the #1 selling bread machine on Amazon and it had pretty great reviews. The price seemed fair too! I had been eyeing a super fancy and expensive Zojirushi, but it had just as many bad reviews as the Panasonic. I decided that for a lot less money, the Panasonic machine would probably last just as long.

 

Now that the machine has arrived and I've already made two loaves of bread, I'm really happy with it. I really like that this model can make three different size loaves; many of the other machines out there didn't have this option. I also love that I can throw everything in the machine and program it so that I have fresh bread when 7 am wake-up rolls around. My only complaint is that I wanted to be able to choose the crust shade for the wheat bread as well as the white bread; however, it certainly is not the end of the world.

My first loaf of bread was honey-wheat. I used half unbleached bread flour and half whole wheat flour. I also halved the amount of honey to cut down on the sugar. It tasted great and had a nice crust. It didn't last long...

 

My second loaf was a classic white bread. For this loaf, I used only bread flour. I chose the medium crust shade for this loaf and it looked great!

Have you ever used an automatic break machine? If so, what's your favorite recipe?