[ytyynycefn]

If anyone's interested!

They're doing bread machines for £25 in Lidl - we bought one last week, as we'd been planning on getting one for a while.  It's blooming brilliant - makes a big loaf too - plus cake, jam, dough, etc.  Much better than the £100+ my ex kept when I left  

So if you're thinking about getting one, I'd recommend these as a "can't really go wrong for the money" buy.

[leeky]

25's a steal. i will nudge her indoors  :idea:  

[ytyynycefn]

I would, I'm still very pleased with mine!

[Ann]

thanks Mel I could do with a new one

[sorrel]

Sounds great - never been very successful making my own bread (usually as hard as rock) and often thought about getting a machine but have been put off by the price

Do you use fresh ingredients in the machine or one of those dried bread mixes?

[Ann]

I've tried the mixes but prefer to use fresh ingredients.

[ytyynycefn]

Well, I like plain old white bread - the recipe I've been using is:

500ml tepid water with 1tbsp dried yeast (not the express instant stuff)
1.5 tsp sea salt
1.5 tsp sugar
700g bread flour

Add to the (Lidl) machine in that order, hit programme 1, and three and a half hours later, you get fabulous bread.  This one has some slices missing  



When I get bored with that, I'll play about with adding pesto, sun dried toms, olives, herbs, stuff like that.  I had it all worked out on my marital bread machine, but ex-hubby got that!

[Ice]

I love my bread machine.  You know exactly what is in your bread and can make some very tast variations.  The only downside for me is that using dried yeast means less of a yeasty smell, which is more than made up for by the variety and ease of use.   Favourites at the moment are sun dried tomato, cheese and herb and sunflower seed.  

[WG.]

Looks yummy Mel.  I'd be making black olive bread one day, rosemary bread the next day, then black olive and rosemary mixed ...

[Zak the Rabbit]

my missus doesnt use her machine very often, but when she does, its several hours of absolute torture waiting for it to be ready, just the smell of baking bread and were drooling

[WG.]

Heh Zak, I thought you'd be able to bake bread at work on top of all that old analogue transmitting equipment!      

[noshed]

Doesn't it use lots of electric?

[Zak the Rabbit]

Heh Zak, I thought you'd be able to bake bread at work on top of all that old analogue transmitting equipment!      

   only if i want it to tast of burnt paxolin  

i can get my tea cooked before it starts - my tea takes 3mins in a 600W microwave, or 2min in an 800W, at the top of the tower its 350,000W! so me tea is cooked by time travel  

[ytyynycefn]

Doesn't it use lots of electric?

It's 800W. Probably uses less leccy than heating up the oven...  It's only hot for the hour it takes to bake.

[Zak the Rabbit]

heating element on for an hour, 800w = 0.8kWh

1 kWh = ~10p (think thats what my leccy costs)

so cost about 8p to bake a loaf! add on the ingredients cost and a cost per loaf for the purchase of the machine, its probably still a bit dearer than buying a loaf, but that aint the point is it i suppose