Bread machine

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This article is about a machine that makes bread. For a person that makes bread, see baker.

A bread machine, or bread maker

A bread machine (more usually known in Australian and British English as a bread maker or breadmaker) is a home appliance for baking bread. It consists of a bread pan with a paddle mounted in the center, in a small special-purpose oven, with a control panel. Using a breadmaker is a convenient way to avoid the hydrogenated vegetable oil that supermarkets add to their bread to make it bake more quickly.

The first breadmaker was released in Japan in 1986. A decade later they had become popular in the United Kingdom and the United States.

To create a loaf of bread, flour, water, salt, sugar, yeast, butter and milk powder (or fresh milk) are measured onto the bread pan and the pan is then placed in the breadmaker. The machine takes a few hours to make a loaf of bread, first by turning the ingredients into dough using the paddle, then baking the loaf. Once the bread has been baked and given time to cool, the pan is extracted from the breadmaker and the bread freed from the pan. The paddle, now at the bottom of the loaf, is removed, leaving a small paddle-shaped hole.

Packets of bread mix are available, specifically designed for breadmakers, consisting of the ingredients pre-measured. Only water needs to be added.

Generally, homemade bread goes stale faster than bread from a commercial baker because it doesn't include additives. However, it is possible to use a sourdough starter in breadmaker dough recipes. Sourdough contains a symbiotic brew of yeast and lactobacteria cultures. Lactic acid produced by sourdough's lactobacteria greatly preserves bread, as well as enhancing its flavor.

Breadmakers are equipped with a timer to control when the breadmaking begins. This allows them, for example, to be loaded in the evening but only begin baking early in the morning, to produce a freshly-baked loaf for breakfast. They can also be set only to make dough, for instance to be used to make pizza. Some can also be set to make other things besides bread, such as jam or mochi, a kind of Japanese rice cake. One of the most recent innovations is the facility to add nuts and fruit during the kneading process automatically from a tray.