Battle of the Bread Machines, Day 7
As promised, here's the husband with the latest installment of the Battle of the Bread Machines.
Yes, I know we haven't played this game lately. But you don't think we'd be continuing our little bread machine contest unless we had a really good reason to, do you?
Well, we do.
Competitor #7: The Zojirushi Model BBCC-X20
The Faudie has already profiled today's contestant, the Zojirushi BBCC-X20. Go ahead and read her post about this double-paddled lil' wonder. All that I can to add to what she's written is: A $240 bread machine for $14? Daaaaaaaaaaaamn. Thank you, Goodwill! From out of nowhere, the Zo has become the machine to beat in this competition.Anxious to get started with the Zo, I didn't spend a lot of time deciding what kind of bread to make. I just went with the first reasonable recipe I came across, which happened to be:
Homestyle Whole Wheat Bread
1 1/2 C water3 C whole wheat bread flour
heaped 3/4 C white bread flour
1 1/2 t salt
2 t sugar
2 T butter, diced
1 t instant dry yeast
- Add ingredients to machine according to manufacturer's directions.
- Use Whole Wheat or Multigrain setting, if available.
Nutritional Info
This particular recipe came from Anne Sheasby's The Bread Machine Bible, which has the Donna Rathmell Germanesque quality of not including nutritional information.
The Husband's Futzings
None to report other than the addition of three teaspoons of vital gluten.
As The Faudie mentioned in her post, our Zo came complete with its original instruction manual (helpfully titled "How To Enjoy Your Home Bakery Supreme"), and thank goodness it did. The BBCC-X20 is capable of a lot, but it's almost impossible to use the controls using intuition alone. For example, to bypass the preheat process, you have to press the "TIME" and "CYCLE" buttons at the same time for three seconds. I can safely say I wouldn't have known that without having the manual on hand.
Official Results for Competitor #7
I'm guessing there's a reason Zojirushi bread machines sell for north of $200, and that reason is because they're awesome. Don't believe me? Just take a look at the loaf of homestyle whole wheat our Zo produced.
The Zo made it so.
The loaf came out perfectly cooked, the crust was the right darkness...I even love the shape of the loaf, which simply looks more "bread-like" than the carbohydrate cubes most of our other machines produce. I couldn't have asked for more. (Since then, I've also used the Zo to prepare a sourdough pizza crust, and the machine continued to perform like a champ.)
By now, we've tested a lot of different appliances over the course of the Battle of the Bread Machines, some of which have found a permanent home in our kitchen. But the Zo has jumped to the front of the pack. I'd hate to think this is the end of our competition, but I have a hard time believing we're going to find a bread machine better than the BBCC-X20.
And yes, it scores extra points for being a $240 machine picked up for just $14. (When was the last time you got a 94% discount on anything?)
It only cost us $7 a paddle!
I'm guessing there's a reason Zojirushi bread machines sell for north of $200, and that reason is because they're awesome. Don't believe me? Just take a look at the loaf of homestyle whole wheat our Zo produced.
The Zo made it so.The loaf came out perfectly cooked, the crust was the right darkness...I even love the shape of the loaf, which simply looks more "bread-like" than the carbohydrate cubes most of our other machines produce. I couldn't have asked for more. (Since then, I've also used the Zo to prepare a sourdough pizza crust, and the machine continued to perform like a champ.)
By now, we've tested a lot of different appliances over the course of the Battle of the Bread Machines, some of which have found a permanent home in our kitchen. But the Zo has jumped to the front of the pack. I'd hate to think this is the end of our competition, but I have a hard time believing we're going to find a bread machine better than the BBCC-X20.
And yes, it scores extra points for being a $240 machine picked up for just $14. (When was the last time you got a 94% discount on anything?)
It only cost us $7 a paddle!
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