KBS17-in-1 Bread Maker-Dual Heaters, 710W Machine Stainless Steel with Gluten-Free, Dough Maker,Jam,Yogurt PROG, Auto Nut Dispenser,Ceramic Pan& Touch Panel, 3 Loaf Sizes 3 Crust Colors,Recipes

When I was about four years old, my grandmother made dinner for the extended family. She made lentil stew with a large beef bone and chunks of meat, and in the delicious broth she cooked lentils. This was served with homemade brown bread, crusty and warm. You ate it by dipping the bread into the broth to soak up the juices.It was the best thing I had ever tasted. 65 years later it is a clear memory and my earliest memory of food. No one believed that a four year old would eat fourths, but I did.I decided to buy a bread machine because there is not a single bakery near me, chain store or independent, that produces a good crusty loaf of bread. Bread brands that, in Fort Lauderdale, have crust, here have brown surfaces that have the same texture as the interiors. I stopped at a stand that sold Italian sausage and peppers on a bun, and the bun was good and crusty. I asked the owner where he got the great bread. He said he had it airshipped weekly from Chicago, he could not get good bread locally.So I wasn't the only person who had noticed. There was no good bread made here. Now this may be just a matter of taste, but my taste finally forced me to bake my own bread. Periodically in my life I have tried to make bread. It was always mediocre. Over or under kneaded, wrong flour. I could buy better bread at the grocery. My grandmother never used a scale, picked the stuff up on sale. She would start bread in the evening, wake without an alarm to punch it down, and bake it first thing in the morning so that it took the chill off of the kitchen, and then we could have fresh baked bread for lunch. I thought it was normal...everyone had hearty, thick sliced fresh baked bread, right? When you had a sandwich in your lunchbox, it was between two slices of heavy tasty brown bread. I never knew how lucky I was.And I can't bake bread. I have tried.So here I am in a dilemma. I know what good bread is, but the local bakeries, either the small ones or the big commercial ones, around here, make crappy bread.If I wanted a loaf that was aught but crustless mush, (or firm crustless bread) I decided I had to bake it myself. I decided to buy this machine. There was an offer but the reviews were good. The deciding factor is that more than one person reported good experience with customer service.And I feel lucky that I bought this machine. Wow! I used the French bread recipe in the book, but salted butter and less salt, everything weighed. Boom! Five stars, perfect, crust that you expect on a French loaf. This was bread I wanted to eat. Light, uniform, with a crusty crust. And...fresh hot bread to boot! Wonderful smells, melty butter.My flours were all from Bob's Red Mill. I used the white flour for the French, and then I tried to make rye bread. I looked on the internet and found some recipes.First try was way too sweet, and the second try was missing something. Third try hit it right on:270ml water22.5 gm light oil (I used light olive)7 gm brown sugar180 gm of bread flour180 gm dark rye flour6 gm salt5 gm bread machine yeast6-12 gm Badia Caraway seeds. This results in a heavy loaf. If you make a large loaf of French, you need to remove the fruit gadget, because it almost hits the top glass. This makes a heavy square loaf that makes it 2/3 up the pan. I have seen recipes that use chocolate, and 4 times the amount of brown sugar. I tried one with way more brown sugar. Too sweet. Cake. I might make a sweet bread someday but when I make rye I want rye bread, not brown sugar bread.This bread had a crust, a great rye flavor, and enough Caraway seeds that they gave me the caraway flavor that is traditional in seeded rye.I have not tried the jam or yogurt or other cycles. I have used the French cycle for the great light crusty French, and the whole wheat cycle for rye. It seems like there are few differences in the cycles, but there are differences, rise time, baking time and temperature. The machine can do three rise cycles but most of the cycles use two, sourdough (which is my next goal) and a couple of others use 3. You can pick a cycle, a loaf size and crust darkness, but you can't make other adjustments to the cycles. Then again, I have not needed those adjustments, but the implication is that a "Pro" machine should allow such adjustments, at least to me.If you are a novice at bread baking, get a scale that will measure in grams and will go to 5kg. Get another scale that will measure in 0.1 or 0.01 gram increments for yeast and salt. Get a bread box and a cooling rack. Get a bread knife. A crappy knife will crush your bread while cutting. Put your good knife in a knife block, not in a drawer, and not in the dishwasher. Protect the edge.That is all you need. Consider a bread box or bread bag.The book that comes with the machine is Excellent. It is written in English (not chinglish). I have no idea what language it was originally written in, but if it was not English, the translation is excellent. It has decent instruction for many things including how to make a sourdough starter. The instructions are detailed, not cursory.I have found that the bread is easy to get out of the coated pan.I have owned other machines. They would make decent bread. I am a bread novice and now I can make better bread than I can buy.Great bread, good instructions, and (others report) good customer service. I would like to have a cycle where I could adjust every aspect rather than just a separate timed bake, but honestly I do not need to. This machine is a buy.Edit: the machine is still a buy but when you make sourdough make the smallest loaf. I tried making a mid sized loaf and it spilled all over the inside of the machine. I cleaned the baked bread out of the bottom with a shopvac, surprisingly easy. I also thought their sourdough was way sweet. If your small loaf works and fits in the loaf pan, then move up.

I bought this as a gift for my husband who insists on "Homemade bread is the best." I don't have the patience to make bread let alone to make it often.This bread machine is the best. Lightweight and easy to move around the kitchen from the cabinet to the counter. It is not too big and easily could stay on the counter as well. Super fast from start to taking bread out it is amazing.The instruction book gives you some recipes and they are easy. (My husband who doesn't cook makes bread often and has only messed it up once and that was his error as he forgot to add yeast)The whole house uses the machine, it is so easy the kids can make bread too!From un boxing, it comes with great instructions, the machine, a tan bowl and a little paddle. There is not much to it and it can make a loaf of bread from start to cool in 4 hours.

The best thing about this bread maker in my mind is the ceramic non-stick pan and paddle.This is my 3rd bread maker. The first one I bought was when there was only one made. Both of these first two failed not because the machine stopped working but because the non-stick became high-stick, so bad you had to break the loaf apart to get it out of the pan.This machine is multifunction which I have no thoughts on. I may use other functions I may not. I would have bought it if it only made bread.It does have an automatic dispenser for nuts, fruit, etc. I may try making some cinnamon raisin bread at some point in which this will be a handy feature.The other thing I really like about this machine is that it makes a traditional shaped loaf. It also has dual heating elements which seems to work better at baking and heating more evenly than my previous machines. The bread comes out very consistent compared to my previous machines.Another nice feature of this machine is a second paddle. It also comes with a hook to remove the paddle if it stays in the finished loaf and a hot mitt.I make bread during the day so I haven't used delay timer but I did ask about it with the exceptional customer support. I was curious because my sister also makes bread. She has a far more expensive, big name, machine and she told me if she hits start there is a 20 minute or so delay before her machine starts as it has a pre-heat cycle. This machine starts immediately (although Anadama bread requires scalded milk which has to be allowed to cool so perhaps this makes my machine sense that there is no need to pre-heat). In any case John with customer support informed me of the heart sensor and should the delay start be used, what the temperature would be raised to prior to actual mixing. Obviously if you have a 10 hour delay overnight in a 65° house temperature has to be raised or yeast will not function properly. I confirmed that this machine does deal with that automatically with a heat sensor, rather than a pre-heat cycle.I also contacted John at customer support regarding what I was concerned could be a potential problem with the non-stick on my pan (included photo of concern). He sent me a new pan which I had in 2 days. As noted customer support is exceptional.As an aside, despite what I've read, bread making is not a precision endeavor. I have family recipes going back several generations including bread recipes for the same bread, Anadama (a cornmeal and Molasses bread introduced by Portuguese fishermen centuries ago). I found 5 or 6 recipes and none are exactly the same, calling for more or less salt, Molasses, cornmeal, butter, milk/water, one even included an egg, so I wouldn't get too hung up on precise measurements. Some of these recipes are old enough that there is no listed oven temperature. It merely states bake in "hot oven", obviously from before ovens had either thermometers or heat controls. I was informed that "hot oven" has been determined to be 350° F. Needless to say baking back then must have been far less precise,no known temperature nor clocks to time the baking process. My mother instructed me how to tell when bread was done by looking at the crust, nicely brown, and thumping (flicking) the crust with finger listening for hollow sound.The only negative I have found with this package is the included measuring cup. It's nearly impossible to read the markings but more importantly it is not close to accurate. I tested it against Pyrex measuring cups I've used for years and it is off quite a bit. However, if you were to use this cup for all liquids it would still be consistent and only perhaps require a little adjustment if you aren't happy with how you're loaves are coming out.I'll include the recipe I've been using for decades adjusted for bread machines for Anadama bread to make 1 1/2 lbs loaf.1 cup milk, 3/8 cup water, 2 Tablespoon butter in pan, scald (bring to just starting to boil and remove from heat. Do not allow rolling boil)Stir in 1/3 cup yellow course ground cornmeal, add 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, 1/4 cup of baking molasses (different from blackstrap molasses, contained sugars are different, check label, black strap may work, I've never tried it)Allow to cool to between 120° - 130° F (for bread machines only, must be cooler for hand kneaded bread 100° - 110°).I use a meat thermometer but use a thermometer because too cold or too hot will affect yeast and bread rise). This is probably the only critical aspect of making bread this way.Put this mixture in the pan, add 2 1/2 cups bread flour, make divot in flour, putting in 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast (not rapid rise yeast).Press start.Makes fantastic toast with just butter on it.You used to be able buy Anadama bread at most any grocery store in the Boston area (probably most of New England) back in the 60s but I've only had it since by making it myself.