Toastmaster made me the Bread Master!! Super Easy - Big Yum!!
Written: Oct 12 '03 (Updated Nov 30 '03)
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Pros: very easy to use, comprehensive manual, tons of recipes, all around great product!!!
Cons: handle doesn't sit flush with pan, makes bread removal somewhat challenging when hot
The Bottom Line: Great product for the average consumer. Fantastic value! Great tasting bread! I just love mine!!
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| sweets7568's Full Review: Toastmaster TBR15 Bread Machine |
--Update at bottom--
I received my Toastmaster TBR15 as a housewarming gift from a Jewish friend who decided instead of giving us a loaf of bread as tradition to “know no hunger,” he would let us make our “own freakin’ bread.” Silly as it sounds, this is quite possibly the most meaningful gift my husband and I have ever received. In the four days that we have had it, I have made about 12 loaves of bread!! I can’t get enough of the smell it leaves in my kitchen or the feeling of knowing I have created a loaf of bread from SCRATCH!!! I love it. And although I can’t speak of it’s longevity, I can speak of everything else. I will gladly update this review in the coming months to include how it is performing. As for now, here’s the rest…
Toastmaster TBR15 is well packed and comes with a lengthy owner’s manual. Upon opening the box I was impressed with an attractive, slender machine that would fit in even the smallest of kitchens and 64 pages of information and recipes to read through. I have never made bread before – in a machine or just in my oven so I am the biggest newbie there is at this.
In fact, I tend to burn everything I try to bake anyway. If it goes in the oven, it’s out of my league. So, I never attempted bread. I had heard many things about bread makers and some people love them, others can do without them. I decided I didn’t have to have one and chose to spend my money on other things. Being that I have never even used another machine, I cannot compare this item to others. I can only tell you what I have learned about mine and my opinion on it.
The manual is completely comprehensive, even for newbies like me. Like most other manuals, it walks you through what to do before use, gives a diagram of the buttons and parts, and lists the features. It also includes tons of hints for baking perfect bread such as showing you how to measure correctly, how to shop for the ingredients, substitutes in case you are out of an ingredient, even info on high altitude baking and freezing bread or dough. After reading the first few pages I really felt like I knew something about bread itself and how it is made instead of just throwing the stuff in a pan like everyone always says about their machines.
The instructions are very detailed with diagrams showing action with each step. Then there are 35 pages of recipes to use with this machine (57 recipes in all!!) The manual also walks you through cleaning and storing and a list of troubleshooting questions and answers so you don’t always have to cal for help or be frustrated when something goes differently than you expected.
===== Procedure =====
I chose to make a loaf of honey-wheat bread first. I took out the baking pan and washed it as instructed in the manual. I attached the kneading blade and set the pan in front of me with my recipe book and all the ingredients. I had already read the list of procedures for the construction of the ingredients, but just in case, they happened to be listed on the page opposite of my recipe. (Maybe that’s one reason I chose to start with Honey-wheat…) Basically, you start with the liquids and put each ingredient into the pan in the order that it is listed. I like that the recipes in the manual remind you that the egg needs to be room temperature and the water should be 80 degrees. Those are things I am likely to forget when I am focused on my main objective. With each loaf, those things become more of a habit but in the beginning it was nice. It made my learning curve much smaller in the long run.
So I got all of my ingredients into the pan, picked it up by the handle and placed it into the machine. I pushed until I heard the click and then closed the machine. (The machine should really stay unplugged until you use it, but leave it on the counter... you'll find that you use it enough to not put it away!!) Upon plugging it in, I am greeted with a beep and I set the program that I choose to use.
=== Settings ===
Each recipe in the manual tells you which program to use for the best results. There are 8 programs in all, and the baking time differs per each program. Listed as follows are the programs and the hours: minutes in which the cycle takes to complete itself. Basic, 3:00 - Rapid, 0:58 - French, 3:50 - Wheat, 3:40 - Sweet, 2:50 - Quick Bread, 1:34 - Dough, 1:20 - Bake only, 1:00
The various settings allow you to bake several different types of breads ranging from slow to fast baking times, simply mix up dough to bake bread or rolls in your oven, or just bake up a dough that you have already mixed up. The manual is clear about the fact that you can use recipes that are not included in this book as long as the amounts do not exceed the machine’s capacity. (Makes a 1.5 pound loaf at max) It also recommends using the Basic program, but I’m sure someone who has baked their own bread could use their best judgment on which program was appropriate after using the machine for a while.
Okay, so I chose the setting in the manual for my honey-wheat bread, which happened to be the basic program which takes 3 hours to complete. Next, I had to choose the crust color, light, medium or dark. In my experience I have found most breads to be best under light crust, however a few do taste better with the medium crust. I have not yet chosen the dark crust as the medium crust usually comes out fine if not a little too dark for my liking.
The last thing to do before you can walk away is set the time. It will start the clock at the time it will take for the bread to complete if started immediately. The Toastmaster TBR15 has a timer feature that allows you to have fresh bread as many as 13 hours from the time you put the ingredients in the pan. The instructions about this were a little misleading – or maybe I just got confused – but it was easy enough to learn around. When you use the arrows to set the timer for the amount of hours, it automatically includes the mixing and baking time. You must program the timer for the number of hours until you want your fresh bread, NOT the timer until you want it to start the process. It’s a mistake you only make once, and it’s not a big one. If you want bread at 6:00 for dinner and it is 11:00 in the morning when you put your ingredients together, then you would set the timer for 7 hours. The machine calculates when to start the mixing process. You just tell it when to be ready. I love the timer feature because I can mix up my hubby’s favorite bread and set the timer for it to be ready for him as he’s getting ready for work in the morning. He actually gets to eat a healthy breakfast this way!!
There are three programs that you cannot use with the timer feature. You cannot time the fast bake, dough, or bake only programs. Most of the fast bake bread recipes listed also have a basic recipe as well so it is not all that inconvenient to not be able to set the timer on those. You wouldn’t want to use the timer on dough or bake only programs because the dough would rise too much and the bread would not turn out anyway.
Once you’ve chosen your time, or just left it as is so that it will begin immediately, you push Start and walk away. The only time you may need to come back to it before it’s done is to scrape the sides when the machine beeps. I prefer to scrape the sides when I’m around because it ensures that you will get the most uniformity in the finished loaf. Once I did not scrape the sides at the beep and I did notice that the corners were floury. But it was not too much flour on the edges and it certainly did not ruin the bread. It is no reason to worry about leaving the bread on a timer if you will be sleeping or out at the store and wont’ have time to scrape the edges. But if you are home and hear the beep, I would scrape the sides just for the sake of it since you’re there. The LED display counts down the amount of time until the bread is ready.
When the baking cycle completes and the bread is ready, you do have a feature of a 60 minute warming cycle that can come in very handy if dinner is running a little behind or company has not arrived yet. You can take it right out of the oven and serve it fresh or wait up to 60 minutes to serve it fresh. Even after the warming cycle finishes, the bread goes through it’s own cooling cycle so it does not go cold within minutes. You can’t beat serving an Italian dinner with fresh, hot home-baked Italian herb bread. I recently got he biggest compliments on my spaghetti dinner than I’ve ever gotten from my husband who’s eaten my spaghetti at least a hundred times. The only difference was the home-baked bread. Did he know? Probably – though it wasn’t a big point because he had his own things to do all day and didn’t notice the bread maker going. Was it fantastic to hear him go on about how good dinner was? Absolutely!! And to think it took 5 minutes to measure ingredients for all that praise!! The Toastmaster TBR15 did the rest!!
The bread pops out of the non-stick pan very easily with just a shake and dump movement. You can’t forget to use oven mitts to grip the pan because it’s usually very hot, but it slides out with no trouble. About 75% of the time, the kneading blade does stay in the bread loaf, but I have never had a problem removing it from the loaf when it’s hot. I just use a butter knife – although the manual says to use a non-meal tool – it pops right out. The spot in the bread is not very noticeable, at least not to me. I am still amazed that I can make home-baked bread. The blade hole is pretty insignificant to me. If I was trying to pass it off as an oven made loaf then it would be an issue, but I have no problem being proud of using a bread machine!! My friends have not said one word and they love to get bread from my kitchen!!!
Cleaning the Toastmaster TBR15 is very simple. The pan is non-stick, as I said, and it wipes or rinses clean very easily. The blade will scrub clean with little effort as it is also non-stick, though I have had to give it some elbow grease on occasion. I found that a Q-tip works really well to get the inside of it clean. The machine itself has never needed wiping or cleaning out of any kind. I do check it after every loaf to make sure it is not in need of cleaning.
=== Only thing I don’t like ===
It may sound ridiculous but the only trouble I have had with this machine so far is the way the handle lays down into the pan. The handle in the pan has a brace so that it will not lay flush against the pan. While this may very well serve a vital purpose such as allowing the handle not to bake into breads that rise above it, it does cause an issue when trying to remove the finished loaf while everything is hot. While I have the pan gripped between two hands that are covered in oven mitts, I am shaking loose the bread but the handle slips down and the bread cannot come out all the way until I have it in my grasp which is hard if you have mitts with no finger slots. It is difficult to maneuver my hands into the right position to hold the handle down and still shake the pan without burning the heck out of my hands. But if that is the only trouble I have with this machine then I will live.
+++ Recommendation +++
Would I recommend this product? Yes, I think I would. I would say any beginner would absolutely be thrilled with this – as a purchase or as a gift. As for a seasoned bread maker, I’d say consider what you really want from the machine and if you are willing to be happy with reasonable priced machinery and average home baked bread. From what I understand, the Toastmaster brand is that of value for an average cook, reasonably priced for your average Joe. If you need fancy settings that aren’t mentioned here or are looking for specific features, then maybe you should consider spending the extra pennies and getting a super special machine. As for me, the woman who can burn refrigerator biscuits, I am tickled pink with my Toastmaster TBR15 and I think most people would be as well.
I would definitely recommend this product to anyone who want to make bread at home. It’s easy to use, the manual is extremely comprehensive, and it is entirely too hard to mess up. Great product. I will update as the months go on as to it’s longevity. For now it gets 99.75% praise from this reviewer!!
=====UPDATE=====
Well, it’s been a few months now and we’re still going strong! I make at least 3 or 4 loaves a week and issues have remained minimal! There are a few things worth mentioning… On two occasions I have had trouble with the “Dough” program. The machine would begin the kneading process and then stop. Although I heard the machine making it’s sounds, nothing was happening inside. I believe that the problem occurred because the bread pan was washed and submerged in the soapy water (by hubby…) before those experiences and the pan is NOT supposed to be submerged. I have successfully used the “Dough” program since then and the only difference has been how it was washed prior to use. The manual clearly states to NOT SUBMERGE the pan at any time. And honestly, it isn’t necessary anyway. The pan is very easy to wipe clean or rinse out. I sincerely believe the trouble came from breaking this rule. It may make the internal mechanism in the pan too wet to work properly. If you wipe it out, it should work fine.
On the subject of “Dough”… the recipes may need to be looked at more carefully than the others. Every time I make a dough to bake in the oven (for rolls or bagels and such) I have to add more flour than it calls for the make the consistency correct to work with. It is frustrating to a point because I am always nervous to add too much. I have to admit that I make dough less often because of this, but I haven’t given up on it altogether!
I did find a misprint in the manual that led to a bit of confusion and is worth mentioning. There is a baking chart in the manual that lists each program and the times of each cycle that program uses. It’s handy to use to find out when to add extra ingredients or to plan when to stop using the tabletop it’s on (for the rising of the bread when kneading stops) One thing the chart also helps with is remembering which program allows you to set the timer. This fact is wrong only in the chart. In each section of the manual that walks you through the particular programs, it clearly states, more than once, that you cannot delay the start on the Fast Bake, Dough or Bake programs. The chart Says there is not timer available on Quick Bread (which there is…) and that there is a timer available on Dough (which there is not.) It seems like a minor mistake until you are planning your dinner using the chart and happen to be looking to make a dough to bake rolls. I tried to set the timer because the chart said I could and it would not let me. It turned out fine because I just made the rolls early and they kept fine, but that‘s not the point. It was a frustrating part of my learning curve.
Do I still love it? – Absolutely! Do I still recommend it? YES!! I use it constantly and have learned my way around the machine’s quirks. I was able to make homemade stuffing this year for Thanksgiving – with actual homemade bread from my kitchen – and that was entirely satisfying!!! I love to get the fulfillment of making bread from scratch for my family without having to spend hours kneading and rising the dough. This is one object of convenience that I am in favor of. It’s a must have!!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): gift
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Epinions.com ID:
sweets7568
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Member: Alicia Slansky
Location: Rockledge, FL
Reviews written: 60
Trusted by: 31 members
About Me:
I am a wife, mother and preschool teacher who loves to read, write and play!
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