Breadman TR875 2-Pound Breadmaker, Stainless Steel
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Breadman TR875 2-Pound Breadmaker, Stainless Steel
Customer Review: Delicious, Fresh Bread!
Summary: 5 Stars
This bread machine was a purchase we weren't sure about. I've made bread by hand before but it was a tedious process. Not anymore!
This bread machine simply requires you to put in some basic ingredients and does all the work for you. Yes, it is noisy, but not unbearably so. It's only during the beginning also, when it is kneading. Anyway, so you put the ingredients in and it does all the work for you. It takes a few hours but the loaf comes out amazing! If you don't want it immediately, you can set it for up to around 15 hours after you put it in (that's pretty long for a bread machine). It will also keep it warm for up to an hour after finishing the loaf, after which it is recommended to throw it out if you have not removed it. I cannot imagine why since not everyone uses cooling racks to cool it, but I suppose it's a legal thing.
The loaves come out looking great every time, erupting with flavor. You get to choose the size and the crust color (including a "rapid" mode). There's modes for every kind of bread, including a super rapid mode, along with pasta, dough and jam.
This bread machine comes with a recipe/instruction book, a measuring cup, and a measuring tablespoon and teaspoon (not the best quality but free). Everything is broken down for you to get as much info as you'd like (including time tables of each cycle) but it's pretty simple to start cooking with it as soon as you get it (well, after running a cycle to burn off manufacturing oils). The bread is EXTREMELY easy to make on a relative scale and comes out delicious according to my family and several of our friends. We plan to give these as gifts.
I definitely recommend this product to those new to baking! This even motivated me to learn to make breads occasionally by hand though this is so much easier!
Side note: This machine recommends milk powder in many recipes in case you want to use the delayed timer so it starts cooking later. If you plan on eating the bread right away, a good substitute is to use four times as much milk and lower the water/liquid levels accordingly. An example is 1/4 cup milk powder = 1 cup milk but removing 1 cup water from the recipe. The recipes make this very easy to do!
Customer Review: works as advertised
Summary: 4 Stars
I've made three loaves so far, two were edible mistakes, latest one is delicious gluten free bread! Breadman comes with his own recipe book so give that a read before you grocery shop.
The ingredients for a two pound loaf of gluten free bread add up to about $12 if you use all organic. My estimate for regular all organic bread is roughly $3 for 2# loaf (using Gold Medal organic flour in the green labelled package), which is 32 ounces or roughly four times the size of store bought bread, the slices are much wider and loaf is roughly same length as commercial loaf and higher, but will fit in a regular toaster if you slice thin.
The plain gluten free bread does require a lot of ingredients which have to be measured out in small amounts, but after the second time, i used the two measuring devices provided, lined everything up on the counter and went with my measuring cup from one to the other, pouring into the baking vessel and then returning each item one at a time to the cupboard. Result is spongy fluffy bread with a flaky dark crust (if you set "color" to dark) and with three eggs it looks a bit like cornbread, but with soft texture like egg challa. A bit of flour seems to stick on the outside no matter what, but the whole product is amazingly professional for a home machine and something you do not have to get your hands (or kitchen) dirty to make, so you can make a few loaves a week for your family without any hassle at all, all components go in a standard dishwasher and come out perfectly clean except for the spot right in the middle where the mixing paddle goes that has to be removed and washed by hand.
Warm the water and eggs for gluten free bread. If making regular bread, warm the water first. Make sure you follow instructions for putting the wet ingredients in FIRST, and the dry active yeast LAST. Also measure the yeast, do not just toss one packet (it's 4.5 tsp or about 1.5 packets for each two pound loaf you'll need).
I also made jam with the jam setting, following instructions (cut down volume so it will not overflow) which came out like a fruit conserve, syrupy fruity preserve stuff that sealed up into Mason jars and tasted fresh when i unsealed the jars.
Customer Review: Gluten Intolerance and a PB&J samich!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been diagnosed with a gluten intolerance. Not actually Celiac Disease, but nonetheless, I've been wheat, barley, oats and hops free for over 2 months now. I purchased this Breadman TR8752 because it had the gluten free setting and I saw other reviews that were positive.
Here's my take on it...
1. It makes great bread. Now that that's out of the way, here's the details.
(I was looking high and low for review that used this TR8752 breadman and the Gluten free Gourmet books for any info, and couldn't find any. So I'm writing this hoping someone else will get some help.)
I started out just by making the recipe in the manual for Gluten free bread. I then purchased the "Gluten Free Gourmet" books. One was over 200 recipes just for breads. The book was made before bread machines had gluten free settings, so the instructions are more complicated than they need to be for the TR8752. Just put the ingredients in the machine in layers of a little wet, a little dry, a little wet, a little dry, and on the gluten free setting, you get amazing bread. I used regular rapid rise yeast from the local grocery store and it came out super.
The Gluten Free Gourmet book also has recipes for flour mixtures that match cup for cup to wheat flour. This requires a trip to a health food store. You won't find Garbonzo Bean Flour at the local A&P. Nor will you find potato starch flour, sorghum flour, potato flour, brown & white rice flour, etc...
So far, i've only made 2 loaves of bread. So each loaf has cost me 120 bucks a pop. Between the breadman, the books, and the ingredients, thank heaven the bread is good!
I highly recommend this bread machine for gluten intollerant folks like me. I also suggest that if anyone has been diagnosed with IBS, "weak stomach", "nervous stomach", Heart burn, acid reflux,has problems loosing or gaining weight, gets stomach cramps after eating a sandwich or pasta and has recently switched to the more "healthy" whole grain or whole wheat foods, to get tested for Gluten Intolerance. The United States is far behind in research on gluten compared to Europe. By Europe's estimate, GI is in 1 in 300 people.
Customer Review: When it worked, it was great!
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought this bread machine on May 15, 2009 online here at Amazon.com. I went with the free shipping so I received it about 10 days later. The product arrived with a 1.5 inch scratch on the front of the unit, but it didn't affect the function of the unit so I was passive about paying full price for a damaged unit. It didn't seem worth the hassle.
I used the bread machine about weekly and made bread and dough for pizza and cinnamon rolls. It worked nicely, but I found it difficult to neatly cut the bread in the loaf pan included in the bread machine so I switched to using it to prepare the dough and then I would take it out and allow it to rise the final time in a loaf pan and then I cooked it in the oven. The size of a regular loaf pan is much easier to cut nicely.
Unfortunately this past weekend (June 27) this bread machine stopped working. I tried different outlets and giving it time to recoup between trying to use it. Amazon.com reported it was past the time of my return window (it ended June 22) so I was stuck dealing with the company on the bread machine.
I called Breadman (ACP) today and they don't have this model, but have a similar model on BACKORDER that I they will send me. What I have to do is write a letter and include the cord from the bread machine. They said to cut it right off. Then I need to ship through a "trackable" method. When asked to define what trackable meant and what they wanted me to do with it, they said that confirmation of delivery was fine. They do not send you a no postage paid address slip. I have to be inconvenienced and pay for shipping. And wait for a product that is similar to the one I purchased that is on BACKORDER. Then they told me I had to pay for the shipping of the new product coming to me..... after explaining how unfair this was (and in my head knowing it will take forever for them to process the cord and letter I send them and put my name on the back order list and finally send me a replacement) they finally gave in and waived the shipping charges for the new product.
Happy when it worked, even though it came with a scratch. Very unhappy with the process that ensues when it stopped working.
Customer Review: Dream Machine Makes Breadmaking Effortless
Summary: 5 Stars
Wife diagnosed with celiac disease; no more bread containing wheat. We selected this Breadman due to its GLUTEN-FREE cycle and the very positive recommendation of a friend.
We had immediate success with ready mixes (Bob's Red Mill brand).
We've had a few fizzles (bread not rising enough, bread 'sinking', being too damp in center, etc.) None of these disasters has been the fault of the Breadman; they're the product of our inexperience.
We're entering month #3 and our success rate has risen dramatically. Pamela's Amazing Wheat-Free Bread Mix has replaced Bob's Red Mill as our favorite but making bread mix from scratch is even better.
Overall time to completion is about an hour on the GF cycle. Cleanup is a breeze. Wish we'd have bought one years ago, even before needing wheet-free breads.
We read a lot of online chat about bread machines and agree that running this one without ingredients for the very first cycle is not good advice. It seems to be like running a microwave without anything in the cooking cavity ... a sure way to burn it out. We simply cleaned the bread paddle and pan and created our first loaf.
We left the paddle in for loaf #1 and removed it mid-cycle for the second loaf. Excellent bread either way but we prefer to remove the paddle during the cycle. The more loaves we create, the stronger we feel: REMOVE THE PADDLE BEFORE BAKING YOUR LOAF !!! Yes, it's going to get chewed and swallowed anyway but it's much more appealing without the irregular hole in every slice.
With strawberries now in season, we've gone into jam production using that cycle. It takes a bit of experimenting with pectin but the results have been fantastic. Just one more reason to own this machine.
In this price range, we think the Breadman Pro is the most elegant and user-friendly machine going. Best of all, it produces super breads and jams. Per other reviews, we agree that the included recipe book is pretty weak. You'll need to purchase a couple of bread machine books (also on Amazon) to really get the hang of it.
If you're in the market for a great machine, this is it.