Hello everyone! In my collection of kitchen gadgets, one I have a particular love for is my bread maker. The smell of freshly baked bread floating through my flat in the morning really is a pleasure! Beyond this – I thought I’d take a closer look on most peoples two key questions: if a bread maker is worth it and if a bread maker can save you money!
How does a bread maker work?
Modern break makers are incredibly easy. You simply put in the ingredients for break (flour, water, yeast, a little butter and salt and some water for a basic loaf) and the bread maker will mix them up into a dough and then bake it into a perfectly shaped loaf for you.
If you have some measuring scales you simply weigh out the ingredient and put them in the basket to be made up. With most bread makers there’s some customisation options regarding the size of the loaf (which affects how many ingredients you put in) and crust style.
Do bread makers make a variety of bread?
Yes, with a bit of variation in the ingredients you can add flavour to breads for some variation (I love to add herbs to mine) or alternative styles of bread such as brioche or ciabatta.
Most bread makers also have a hopper for seeds/nuts which (if you like your bread with them) will get added at the appropriate time in baking process.
How long does a bread maker take to make bread?
It’ll vary by model – my Panasonic takes 4 hours on a full cycle, but also has a rapid option which makes it in 2 hours and 15 minutes.
I’m sure there’s a technical difference, but I can’t honestly say I taste a difference between the two approaches.
(Note: At the end of the cycle, the bread and the metal basket it’s baked in are pretty molten – you’d definitely want to leave some cooling time as well).
I tend to put the ingredients in just before I go to bed at night and set it up for a delayed start, so the bread is fresh and read for the morning – plus it sets up that beautiful freshly baked smell!
Can a bread maker do other things beyond a loaf?
Yes, absolutely, most modern bread makers will have a variety of options.
Dough
You don’t have to go to the full extent of making bread – all modern bread makers as well have an option to simply mixing up the ingredients to create a dough instead
Pizza Base and Rolls
Once you have a dough (after leaving it to prove you) can make up a pizza base or rolls and finish them off in the oven.
Cake
Using different ingredients, you can also make a variety of easy cakes in your bread maker as well.
How much does a bread maker save?
Let’s take a look into the relative costs of making a loaf of bread versus buying one in store
I’m using the basic recipe for my bread maker to make this comparison making a medium loaf, and we’ve used Tesco Groceries as our price comparison on ingredients as a fair “mid-price” supermarket.
(In practice, there’s obviously some variation based on your supermarket of choice.)
The store bought bread option
We’ve gone for a Tesco in-store bakery option of a High Fibre Wholemeal Loaf at 400g – this is £1.10 for a loaf.
The bread maker version
For the bread maker option we’ve put in the following ingredients and how we’ve noted the costing:
Allinson’s Very Strong Wholemeal Bread Flour – at £1 for 1kg. We use 475g, so the cost is 47.5p
Allinson’s Dried Active Baking Yeast – at £1.20 for 125g. We use one and a half teaspoonfuls so we’re going to estimate it’s about 10g and say approx 9.5p.
Tesco Salted Butter, at £1.89 for 250g. We use 25g which works out as 18.9p.
The other ingredients are a spot of salt and water (we used filtered tap). There is in practice so cost we’ve these, but we’re going to say it’s negligible.
Finally there’s the running cost of the breadmaker – Which has estimated most modern breadmakers use about 0.34 kWh during a standard breadmaking cycle. At the time of writing this, my energy costs are 66.2 p/kWH, making the running cost of making a loaf about 22.5p.
Adding up those costs, this gives us a total cost for a home made loaf of 98p after rounding.
So do I save money with a bread maker versus buying a loaf?
So for those keeping track, that’s 98p for our at home version versus £1.10 for the bought version.
As a moneysaving device, the answer simply is that a breadmaker isn’t going to save you much even over time – particularly as we haven’t factored in the cost of buying the machine.
So is buying a breadmaker worth it?
From a financial moneysaving point of view, this answer is simply no – any saving is so marginal and it’s a matter of years before you get there.
However there are other advantages to making bread at home. On the taste side, the homemade stuff has a really delicious flavour that only a more expensive “artisan” bread can realistically compete with.
Many supermarket breads also contain a few preservatives and extra ingredients out of the practicality of being in the food chain – when you make your own, you know exactly what’s gone into it.
Finally, you can modify your bread to exactly how you like it, mixing in your favourite herbs and seeds to create interesting combinations! There is a certain pleasure in having something made yourself as well.
So do I recommend a breadmaker? Yes – but it’s not with the money hat on!
What are the best breadmakers available?
We’ve included below three well received bread makers at a range of price points:
The Personal Recommendation: Panasonic Automatic Bread Maker
This is the most up to date version of the bread maker I still use myself and gets excellent reviews. I’ve had my Panasonic running for years without issue and always very pleased with it.
You can buy it here at John Lewis, here at Lakeland, here at Argos and there’s a variety of Panasonic Breadmakers available at Amazon.
The Budget Option: Morphy Richards Bread Maker
A friend has this great breadmaker from Morphy Richards – at under £100 is a cheaper option that many others. Whilst it doesn’t have the multi-purpose functionality of some of the others, it’s still a nice looking piece of kit that will throw out a great loaf!
You can buy it here here at Dunelm, here at Argos, or here at Amazon
The Elite Option: Sage The Custom Loaf Breadmaker
A really smart but expensive looking bit of kit, this Sage Breadmaker does it all when it comes to your bread options. Not the cheapest option but all the functionality you’ll ever need.
You can buy it here at Amazon, here at John Lewis or here at Harts of Stur.
Any questions?
If you have any questions about our usage of our bread maker or would like to share your own experiences of if you think a bread maker is worth it we’d love to hear from you! Just let us know in the comments below.
And if you’re looking to save money when cooking, why not check out our review of if batch cooking is worth it?
Recipes for use in a bread maker
Your bread maker will usually come with a book of recipes which makes a great starting point, but I thought I’d include the basic bread recipe I use and some and some of my favourite modifications for you to try.
It’s important to start with your dry ingredients at the bottom, so I recommend putting these in your bread maker in the order listed here. This will give you a medium to large size loaf of bread.
Basic Breadmaker Loaf Recipe
- One teaspoonful of yeast – ideally fast acting.
- 500g of flour – white, wholemeal or a combination of the two. Ideally, you want strong bread flour as this will bind the bread better, but plain flour will also work.
- 25g of butter – I use salted just because it brings out the flavour a little more.
- 1 and a half teaspoonfuls of sugar (add or remove to taste, I find any isn’t necessary, but without it you may find it bland relative to store-bought bread)
- 1 and a half tea teaspoons of salt (I tend to reduce this slightly if using salted butter).
- 340ml of water.
Easy Herb Bread Recipe Modification
Personally I really like the taste of Oregano, and so I will generally throw in at least a teaspoon full of this after I put in the butter. Dried Rosemary also works particularly well with this. I suggest not going over two teaspoonfuls as it can overpower the bread.
Curried Mango Bread Loaf Recipe
One of my favourite modifications is to make a curry and mango bread loaf, which really adds to any sandwich!
Follow the basic bread loaf recipe above, but before the water throw in 3 teaspoons of mild curry power, and 2 tablespoons of mango chutney.
Whilst it will work with both, I’d really suggest using wholemeal flour as the base for this one as it brings out the bread to it’s very best. It also smells absolutely delicious when baking.
Any suggested breadmaker recipes?
We’d love to hear your own breadmaker recipe suggestions so please do drop them in the comments below!
And that’s it!
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