Food For Fun is part of "Your Morning Coffee" show with host Gery Puraatmadja on FeMale Radio 97.9 FM Jakarta. Airing every Friday from 8am to 9am, Gery will be accompanied by co-host Ade Putri as the Foodtective. Here, we will discuss light topics about foods. Who doesn't love food anyway? :)

1/8/13

Breadman TR520 Programmable Bread Maker Reviews

It is getting harder and harder to find foods that don't contain High Fructose Corn Syrup and other such things, and when I finally do find them they are very expensive. So I wanted to replace processed foods with homemade in my family's diet. But with 4 kids and a very small kitchen that is also used as a classroom, it is hard to find the time and space to hand-knead and etc. Mixers with kneading attachments can cost 4 times as much as this breadmaker, and I would have to be there changing the attachments, timing everything, moving things to different pans, etc. Breadman TR520 breadmaker does everything for me! It mixes, kneads, and rises bread, pasta dough, pizza dough, etc. etc. and bakes bread. All I have to do is put the ingredients inside and press a button! And the cost of the ingredients ends up being less than even the unhealthy processed foods; so we are eating healthier and cheaper.

Other people are saying the kneading blade gets stuck inside the bread, and that is true if you try to remove the bread while warm; however I have found that if I let the bread cool inside the pan, when cool the bread will side right out and leave the kneading blade behind. Also, the instructions do not mention this, but if you want the bread to be like store-bought sandwich bread, you have to wait about 24 hours before slicing. Fresh bread tastes great on the side of other foods or alone, but it kind of falls apart if you try to cut it thinly or spread anything on it without waiting a day. Having only made cake-like bread before getting this (banana bread and such, never anything with yeast), I was not aware of that fact.

Another thing the instruction book does not mention is that the pan and blade conduct heat so well that if you wash them in hot water, they will get VERY hot. I have to wash this in warm water, not hot, to avoid getting burned. However, they are so easy to clean that it is not really a concern.

I bought ingredients before seeing the instruction booklet, so if you're planing to do that, here's some tips. You'll need "active dry yeast" for the regular recipes, and "quick rise" or "bread machine" yeast for the "fast bake" recipes. You'll also need bread flour, as all-purpose flour won't work for most types of bread/dough. If you want to use whole-wheat flour, you'll need whole-wheat and bread flour, or whole-wheat that is specifically bread flour, as regular whole wheat alone will not work.

I love this machine. My only regret is that I didn't get one years ago!

Breadman TR520 Programmable Bread Maker is available on Amazon.com


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