Zojirushi BBCCX20 Home Bakery Supreme Bread Machine
|
List Price: Category: Kitchen See more product details |
|---|
(Click here)
Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Zojirushi BBCCX20 Home Bakery Supreme Bread Machine
Customer Review: a terrible product
Summary: 1 Stars
I have been baking bread a long time, sometimes by hand but bread machines are a great alternative. I have had 3 machines, this one is the worst AND the most expensive!! PROS: very quiet, two dough hooks. CONS: 1.)only 3 settings, white, wheat and dough. 2.)rising cycles are too short to allow bread to ferment, rise and shape properly. result is flat bread that is as dense as if you had dipped it in cement. you can program your own times, but you will have to guess what works for this machine and that will mean a lot of lost time, frustration and wasted food ingredients 3.)no extras drop in feature, you have to be present when the beep sounds to add nuts, raisins, which defeats the purpose of "set it and forget it" 4.) instructions are in a poorly translated English manual that does not always make sense (e.g. "add flour and liquids respectably" yes, I know what they meant, but it is like finding the coffee stain on your airline seat tray table--makes you wonder where else they cut a corner) 5.it takes up to 50 minutes to warm up! this brings your bread baking time to almost 5 hours!! ridiculous! 6. the video is wierd, making a big deal about the meatloaf recipe. 7. very expensive 8. and most significantly, it did not make edible bread! I have had inexpensive machines and worked my way up to the alleged top of the line but had better results with the off brand cheap model. I returned this machine and went to Target and got the Breadman Ultimate-- $99.00Breadman TR2500BC Ultimate Plus 2-Pound Stainless-Steel Convection Breadmaker. this is a much better machine. I bought the Zo because The Bakers Catalog raves about it. I did not have a defective machine,it was working as designed-- very poorly. Another alternative is to use a food processor and this GREAT book: The Best Bread Ever: Great Homemade Bread Using your Food Processor I have never had a bad bread outcome using Van Over's book. The only positive thing I can say about Zojirushi is they make the best rice cooker I have used.Customer Review: Better Bread ... Period.
Summary: 5 Stars
Zojirushi rules! The two-paddle system yields a better "crumb" because it doesn't beat the ingredients to death before baking like the Breadman Ultimate, and the heavier-duty pan provides a lighter, crisper crust even on the "Dark" setting.
Overall construction is much sturdier than other machines I've used (been doing this for years!), and I can well believe folks are getting ten or more years out of their Zojirushis -- which makes the steeper initial price a whole lot easier to swallow: Per year of use the Zojirushi is the much better value. It's quite a bit quieter than the Breadman, in large part because it isn't constantly slamming the dough ruthlessly against the sides of the pan and making the whole assembly rattle.
The recipes included are extremely tasty, especially the pizza dough -- which, baked on the lowest oven rack at 500 degrees atop a Lodge Cast Iron Round Griddle will tempt you more an more often to forego the joys of your favorite pizzeria in favor of Doing It Yourself.
For those of you who live at higher altitudes, the Zojirushi will give more consistent results in rise and a better hedge against collapse. Again, this is partly a function of the less-strenuous kneading; but something about the pre-heating and the heavier pan and the heat delivery system itself means you can trust the machine to turn out great loaves when you haven't the time or inclination to pop the dough out, put it in a regular bread-pan or shape it into a round or braid for oven-baking.
A two-pound loaf is a bit much for me and the wife; in fact, with the two-pound recipes listed, the loaves weigh out at more than two pounds; so a little simple proportional ingredient-adjustment to achieve that perfect pound-and-a-half puppy is well worth the effort. Here in Albuquerque, a 1-1/2 pounder loaf of whole wheat (use graham flour -- yum!) requires only 1 tsp. of regular active dry yeast (NOT fast-rise!) to produce a monstrous-pretty, golden, well-rounded masterpiece.
Clean-up's a breeze, and I haven't yet had to pry a paddle out of a loaf of hot bread.
So get it, already -- whatcha waitin' on?!?
Customer Review: Does not live up to its price
Summary: 2 Stars
I wanted to like this product -- really. After all, a $200 bread machine SHOULD be great, when most are well under a hundred. I bought this when I thought my 10 year old Hitachi was broken; it later started working, and I have gone back to it instead of this machine. I would have returned this product, but you only have 30 days to make a return with Amazon, and I was still testing it out -- hoping it would work. Plus, the cost of returning it would have been quite high. So, I'm stuck with a machine with many problems, most of which are inherent in the design (and not a product failure). First, the idea of a horizontal loaf with two blades seems good, but in reality, the Zo loaf is the same size as my Hitachi vertical loaf. Furthermore, because there are two blades, now the bottom of every loaf (and consequently, almost every slice of bread) is ruined by where the blades were. When combined with the indentations on the sides of the pan, the result is bread that you can only use at home -- not for guests or gifts.
My other issues:
*The motor/blades are quite loud, and the bread pan clanks and moves when mixing.
*The "add" beeping feature is also loud, and makes it impossible to use overnight.
*There is no crust control setting except for the basic bread (i.e., you can't change the crust to "light" in the wheat setting).
*The top consistently does not brown.
*The loaves are consistently lopsided. Again, this appears due to the "dual" blade feature. Sometimes the dough ends up on one side of the pan, and stays there during baking.
*The blades do not mix the materials at the side of the pan well. I usually have to scrape the sides while mixing.
*The bread is difficult to remove. I never had this problem with my Hitachi.
*There is no indicator if you don't have the bread pan properly inserted. So you might end up with a cooked mass of unmixed ingredients. My Hitachi has a "bread pan" indicator if you don't get it inserted all the way.
If this were a $60 bread machine, these problems might not seem so bad. But for a top-of-the-line machine, it was very disappointing.
Customer Review: Great machine, Recipe needs to be modified, Excellent Customer Service
Summary: 5 Stars
I asked for this bread machine as my Christmas present. My first bread came out a little bit dense, and the top was under cooked using the Medium crust, basic setting. I did some research and made the following changes to the recipe came with the machine: 1. reduced the amount of flour by 1/4 cup (it's winter time and I live in MA), 2. used slightly warm water than the cold water, 3. placed salt on different corner with yeast, and switched to quick setting that contained only two raise. The results were satisfying. So far, I had made and tasted very delicious white bread, raisin bread, Italian herb, and blueberry cake (recipe found on Zojirushi website). I also tried the self programmed setting to make the Crusted French bread. I think the suggested 2nd raising time on the recipe book was too long, my bread was raising too well and the dough was touching the viewing window mid of the baking cycle. I took the entire pan out and continued to bake in the conventional over and had a wonderful result. The center was so soft with the crust just about right. It beats Bertucci's rolls!!! The nice surprise was that after I registered bread machine online, I left a comment that a DVD format of the instructions will be more convinienent as VHS machine was not available in my home theater setup. A couple of days later, I got an email that told me a DVD format instruction had been shipped to me for free. W-O-W! Talk about customer service!!! They actually read my comments and went above and beyond to help me. I read some reviews of the densed and hard bread that people made and I suggested reducing the amount of flour you use and ajusting the the tempurature of the water used. I am not a baker in any sense and this machine made me so proud. This is my first bread machine and I honestly do not have comparisons vs. other brand, but I am extremely happy with this machine and I sincerely hope those who had a bad result with their bread can get a satisfying resulf after few more experiements. On top of all my satisfactory, I think the cons is its high end price. I'd like to believe the machine will last long as I know I will enjoy using it for a long time.Customer Review: Love IT!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
This bread machine replaces an old DAK bread machine that lasted us over 15 years, so it had some tough competition to overcome. This is a bread machine that is in use for 3-4 loaves of bread per week and whole grain to boot. I have not had any difficulties with this machine.
I was leary after reading some of the negative reviews on the product but when I looked to see the percentage of good to bad, I realized that most people have had excellent service from this product and now I am among their numbers. I think that remembering that this is only a machine and does not have a brain is a good idea. It does so much to simplify the process of making breads that it may seem like it is 'intelligent', but it is just a machine.
The dual paddles do an excellent job of mixing the ingredients. Occasionally I have to coax the dough into the form I want as it finishes the kneading and starts to rise, but overall they do exactly what they are supposed to do; mix the ingredients. The dough rises in good proportion to the type of bread I am making, as long as I don't allow the yeast to come in contact with the liquids, as the instruction book warns against. All of the instructions have been clear and concise and to the point. When I follow them and don't try to take shortcuts, the machine performs to my expectations and those are rather high.
We love that the loaves come out looking 'normal' and not the bullet shapes we've had for years. Yay!
This machine meets my family's needs as vegetarians who like to limit our exposure to the 'natural' ingredients that some companies use, (what do they mean 'natural flavorings'??) as well as avoiding the HFCS, High Fructose Corn Syrup that seems to have invaded our foods. It also helps me to meet the needs of visiting family and friends who may be gluten or lactose intolerant.
I would recommend this machine to anyone who has a need for a reliable machine. Keep in mind that it is a very large machine, but if you have the counter or cupboard space to store it, by all means, buy this one.