The last weekend of November my bread machine broke. It was a Zojirushi, and was seventeen years old. It was my second bread machine. My first was also a Zojirushi. That one was cool, it had a vertical pan, so it made a tall loaf, and it had a finish pan that I could swap out with the mixing pan so there would be no hole in the bottom of my loaf. The top of the loaf was a wonderful pillow top that I would cut off while the loaf was still warm and spread with butter and eat. I used that one regularly and it didn’t last too many years. My second bread machine did not see such regular use, but lately I had been using it weekly, and it finally broke. I had put my ingredients in as usual on the 29th of November, but when I went to check on my bread it hadn’t mixed. I quickly scooped everything into my Kitchen Aide mixer and finished mixing, then put it into two loaf pans to rise and then baked it in the oven. The bread came out great.
I immediately went online and started searching for a new bread machine. Things have changed some since the last time I shopped for one. I ended up with a Cuisinart CBK-200 Convection Bread Maker. The picture above is the third loaf I made in it. The pan is not as long as the one in my Zojirushi, so the bread comes out taller. The first loaf I made was a 1.5 pound loaf and it was too tall. The second loaf I made was a 1 pound loaf and it was too short, so I tweaked the recipe to make a 1.25 pound loaf and used the 1 pound cycle. It came out just right. I had seen some complaints about the Cuisinart browning the bread too much, and I agree that it does tend to brown a little more than I prefer, but this one came out perfectly. And the bread is the best bread I have ever eaten. The texture is perfect, soft without being mushy, and it keeps well. I cut the loaf in half right down the middle and store it in the fridge in plastic bags (it is too big to fit into a single bag). Even after a week, the bread is not stale or dry. I cannot say the same about the bread from my Zojirushi.
I think the secret is that this bread machine does a better job of mixing. It only has a single paddle, but the paddle has a nice design and it beats with a solid mechanical sound and action. I always supervise the initial mix to make sure that there is enough moisture in the dough and that everything is getting picked up. Once it makes a nice ball I walk away until the machine beeps to let me know it is time to take out the paddle. On my Zojirushi I had to listen for the second stir down and then go take out the paddles, then once the bread was finished baking I would let the whole pan sit on a cooling rack for twenty minutes before taking the bread out or else there would still be big holes where the bread stuck to the paddle posts. With my new machine I can pop the loaf out right away and there is barely a hole where the post was.
I started making bread again when I noticed that store bought bread, even the high end stuff, was bothering my stomach and just making me feel off. I got worried that maybe I was developing a gluten allergy. So I decided to start making my own bread again, and the problems disappeared. I figured it was probably the other stuff they add to the bread. Now we rarely buy bread products.
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