The history and benefits of the bread maker

A slice of hot bread, fresh from the oven, topped with a dollop of melting butter is a heart warming thought. But many of us never get to make it more than hopeful imagining due to the energy required for mixing, kneading, rising, re-kneading and baking. Pas de probleme. Where there’s a bread maker, there’s a way.

Way back in 1902 a clever young man named Joseph Lee patented the first bread machine. It mixed the ingredients and then kneaded the dough, which cut down on the number of people needed to make bread therefore lowering the cost of making it, too. It was only in 1986 that the first bread maker for home-use was released and while it was initially thought that the concept wouldn’t take off bread machines have just become better and more popular since.

Five benefits of using a bread machine

1. Less mess, less fuss | It really is as simple as measuring your ingredients, popping them into the bread pan, pressing a couple of buttons and waiting for the perfect end result. And the best part? You only have one bread pan and a tiny blade to clean afterwards.

2. No knead (sorry, I had to) to work hard | The total amount of time required from you is roughly 10 minutes. Compare this to the hands-on time that you would have spent in preparing a loaf from scratch – it’s a no brainer!

3. Works while you’re away | Washing to do? Kids to fetch? Need a nap? Go and take care of life and be rewarded with a freshly baked treat when you get back. Once all of your ingredients are added, no further attention is required until the machine beeps to let you know it’s done its work.

4. The results… oh the results! | Bread machines know what needs to be done, exactly when to do it and they are very unlikely to disappoint.

5. The glorious timer | Like the sound of waking up to freshly baked bread? We thought so. Bread machines have useful timers that allow you to plan when you’ll need your loaf of bread ready for breakfast, your pizza dough ready for rolling out or your bread roll dough ready for baking.

These are our thoughts on bread making in bread makers. Can you tell that we like them? If you like them too, check out this review of the Morphy Richards bread maker and recipe for making basic white bread. Then invite us for breakfast…

With thanks to Karen Grandcourt for the beautiful images.