Battle of the Bread Machines, Day 4

The saga continues!

--The Faudie
The Battle of the Bread Machines, in which Goodwill-bought bread machines compete for the honor of becoming a permanent fixture in our kitchen, continues!

Competitor #4: The Breadman Model TL555LC

Plucked from a life of obscurity when it was discovered at a nearby Goodwill back in July, the Breadman model TL555LC has been waiting for a replacement kneading paddle to be eligible for competition. For more than a month, the TL555LC has been waiting patiently at one end of the kitchen, quietly watching as its competitors, the Welbilt models ABM-3600 and ABM-100-3 and the Breadman model TR444, have been put to the test. With all that time to rest and study the competition, will the TL555LC be able to put on a dazzling display now that the paddle has arrived?

The recipe the TL555LC will be trying out in its big debut comes from The Bread Machine Cookbook II.

Maple Wheat Bread

3/4 C water
1 T margarine or butter
3 T maple syrup
1/2 t salt
1/2 C wheat flakes
1/2 C whole wheat flour
2 C bread flour
1 T nonfat dry milk
1 1/2 t yeast

1. Place ingredients into bread machine in the order suggested by the machine's manufacturer.
   
2. Select the Sweet, Wheat or Basic option on the machine, then start the cycle.

Yield: 1 lb. loaf

Nutritional Info
Not provided. You should be used to that by now.

For those readers who are interested in our futzings, Angela reduced the amount of water and added a half-tablespoon of vital gluten. Oh, and instead of maple syrup, we used Griffin's Original Waffle Syrup, the ingredients of which are sugar syrup, corn syrup, artificial maple flavor, salt, caramel color and potassium sorbate. It tastes great on pancakes, but it's not exactly, you know, real maple syrup.

The judges by now have spent many hours playing with bread machines, and as such, we're probably getting a little particular about what we like and don't like in a bread machine. During the TL555LC's trial run, we discovered that we did not like its lack of an indicator light to signal which stage of the bread-making process it's in, nor did we like the fact that it didn't even beep to let us know when it was done. Those are small issues, to be sure, but they're things we noticed.

And what of the bread, you ask?

Official Results for Competitor #4
What we got was a perfectly shaped loaf of bread, with a pleasantly light crust. Of all the bread machines we've tried thus far, the TL555LC seems to work the best when it comes to selecting the darkness of the crust.

Nice-lookin' loaf

And the bread tasted good too! The maple flavor was nonexistent (I'll pin the blame for that on the waffle syrup we used), so don't get any ideas that this bread came out tasting like a premade piece of French toast or anything like that. For a loaf of wheat bread, however, it came out quite well, and the wheat flakes gave it a nice texture. We may or may not have eaten half the loaf right then. (OK, we did.)

The Battle of the Bread Machines isn't over, though. We have a late entry to the competition, a Breadman Ultimate model TR2200C, that we picked up on during a visit to a Goodwill in South Austin last weekend. It didn't come with a kneading paddle, either, but the paddle for the TL555LC will also work with the TR2200C. Stay tuned for Day 5 of this epic competition!