If you eat bread regularly, a bread machine is a great investment. These marvelous machines cost less than you might think and pay for themselves quickly in money, time, and pleasure.
What Bread Machines Cost
Prices for bread machines continue to drop. What once cost $250 or more you can now get for $50 or less. Want a faster payback? Get one for $30 or less on eBay, through Craig’s List, at a thrift store, or at a yard sale. You may be able to get one in exchange for few loaves of bread if you ask around. Who knows how many of your Facebook friends have one gathering dust?
What Bread Machines Save
- Save about two dollars a loaf by making organic bread at home (see my recipe). Two dollars for five minutes of work: that’s $60 an hour! And you can do it in your PJs while listening to the music of your choice.
- Save energy by heating up a very targeted area instead of your whole oven. There’s no pre-heating, so all that heat doesn’t whoosh out into your kitchen when you open the oven door.
- You’ll gain flexibility: set the bread machine to bake while you sleep or work (after reading any fire-hazard warnings in the instructions). I feel like Judy Jetson waking up to bot-made bread!
- You’ll save time. Hand-made Good Whisk Bread takes twenty minutes for two loaves and about eighteen minutes if you cut the recipe in half to just make one loaf. Making a loaf of bread machine bread takes just 5 minutes because you don’t grease the pan, don’t stir, don’t kneed, and don’t shape. In fact, making bread-machine bread takes less time than dashing to the store to buy a loaf.
- You’ll save your hands and wrists. If you ache from arthritis or overuse, let the bread machine do the kneading. When I hurt my shoulder last year, I let the bread machine do the hard work, then I just shaped the bread, let it rise again, and baked it in the the oven.
