Panasonic SD-YR2550SXC bread maker
Buy now £199, Currys.co.uk
- Power: 600W
- Dimensions: 55cm x 41cm x 30 cm
- Capacity: 3l
- Settings: 31
If you’re looking for a compact model, that can sit on your worktop and go unnoticed – then this isn’t the one for you. A hefty bread maker, in silver and black, it’s attractive, with a horizontal design and flush lid, but you’ll struggle to either find somewhere to store it or make it look conspicuous in your kitchen.
The machine comes with two paddles, which mix the bread mixture, one for sourdough and another slightly more rigid one which works for all the other settings. The bread maker comes complete with a measuring cup, stirrer and measuring spoon – which were all useful when concocting different recipes. To the right of the machine, you’ll find the 31 settings listed, a small LCD screen with a timer and buttons for changing the time, crust and loaf sizes, of which there are three individual settings limiting the size of your loaf to 1.1kg.
Like some other models on the market this update has also got a flip top compartment, which allows you to add nuts, seeds and dry fruit for settings such as the raisin bread. Simply press the button and they will fall into the mix at exactly the right time – which we found very clever. While not completely obvious, it also works for yeast, adding it to the mixture at the right time of cooking.
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A light lid, we found it strange for such a big bread maker that there was no viewing window – a hindrance when you’re not sure how well your bread is cooking. It does, however, have markings on the LCD screen to tell you when it is kneading, baking and rising. The bread pan is scratch proof and stain-free thanks to the diamond particles coating and we found it easy to clean with soapy water and a rinse.
PerformanceThe instruction manual, which comes with the bread maker is very extensive. It comes with a list of all bread recipes as well as explaining how long each type takes to bake – according to what size you want to create. And though we didn’t get to try every setting, we liked that there are options for gluten free loaves as well as sweets.
We started with a medium basic loaf. It was set to take four hours to bake, and after attaching the paddle and loading the ingredients into the loaf tin our work was done. As we left the machine to work its magic we couldn’t help but notice how quiet it was. Some form of beep or alert to tell you the process had started, or that the machine was switching to a different mode, would make it slightly more user friendly.
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The four-hour setting, we thought, would be worth waiting for, but after three hours, and not much noise, we had a little peak and realised that although it had been mixed, it hadn’t been kneaded properly, and therefore wasn’t rising like it should. After some troubleshooting, we realised that the paddle hadn’t been securely fixed.
Once fixed we tried the pizza dough setting, also adding the yeast to the top compartment, which only took a little over an hour and came out perfectly. While we also tried the wholemeal rapid setting, on its 13-hour delay timer, so we could wake up to bread in the morning – which didn’t raise as much as we hoped, but was still soft and fluffy, with a good crust.
As we mentioned above, we think this bread maker is also worth investing in if you’re gluten free. It has four different programmes for making bread, cake, pizza and pasta but all with celiac diets in mind. The pasta seemed too adventurous for us, so we opted for the gluten free cake – which rose slightly too much in the baking tin, spilling over the edges, but it tasted great and didn’t burn.