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A while back, I received my first bread making machine as a present from my family. Over time, I have also managed to acquire a few more kitchen appliances, including those that I have bought as well as presents from well meaning friends. Unfortunately, some of these gadgets have accumulated dust in my kitchen cupboards, and over time, I’ve had to either given them away or given up on using some of them.
The bread machine is a different beast. It’s one of the world’s best kitchen appliances as far as I am concerned. Your use of this gadget evolves, and as time goes by, before you know it you kind of become a convert to making your own bread at home. So yes, I am a convert and would rank a bread maker at the top of my list as one of the more useful kitchen gadgets to get.
If you are thinking about whether or not to purchase a bread machine, then here are a list of factors to consider when deciding whether or not to purchase one.
Is Bread Part of Your Staple Diet?
If bread is part of your staple diet, then that is one reason to add to the list of positives to buy a bread maker. Perhaps it’s something that you eat every day which is part of your regular diet. For other families, bread may be an occasional part of their diet. They may eat it at dinner time, or may be for lunch sometimes, but not on a daily basis. Which category of bread consumption do you fall under?
Health Benefits
Think about the quality of the bread that you and your family are currently consuming. Is it good quality bread that is enhancing your diet? Does it have any additional ingredients whole grain, mixed grains, seeds and nuts etc. that is providing additional variety and health benefits to your diet?
So that leads me to the second factor which are the health benefits associated with making your own bread at home. Commercial bread especially of the white bread variety is not as nutritional. Compared to whole wheat bread much of the goodness in terms of nutrients and vitamins was stripped out of the white flour used to make your loaf of bread. Yes, it does taste softer than whole wheat bread, and is lighter in texture, but it is not as nutritious as bread of the whole wheat variety.
Get Creative in your Kitchen
Once you have mastered the basics of making your own loaves at home, it’s actually fun to experiment with different recipes. If you consider yourself a budding chef, then are plenty more things in addition to bread that you can make in your bread maker. Think delicious jam and spreads, dough for pizza, quick breads, cakes and savory breads.
Time and Convenience Factor
Lastly, but not least, it’s easy and convenient to use, saves you time, and takes the hard work out of making your own bread. You don’t have to muck around in the kitchen with dough sticking on your hands and on the kitchen bench top if you don’t want to. The set timer feature on bread makers means you can place your ingredients into the pan, set the time when you would like your loaf to be ready by, and presto, in a few hours or more, you will have a fresh loaf of bread to share with the family.
Low Cost Investment
You can pick up a bread machine for a low cost outlay of around one hundred to two hundred dollars. If you pick a reliable model, your bread maker could last for years to come and you could be making many loaves of bread. That’s a pretty good return on investment for your initial outlay.
Then there are the other factors we have discussed above such as the time and convenience factor, and the fact that you could make much healthier bread than the commercial sort.
So as you can see, there are many good reasons to purchase a bread maker.
You may be interested to read our article on How to Choose A Bread Making Machine.