West Bend 41300 Hi-Rise Electronic Dual-Blade Breadmaker
by West Bend
List Price:
Our Price: $83.94
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Category: Kitchen
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Product Summary
Manufacturer: West BendBrand: West Bend
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Model: 41300
Color: Black
Product features:
- Electronic dual-blade bread machine for making bakery-style artisan bread at home
- 4 horizontally shaped loaf sizes--1 pound, 1-1/2 pounds, 2 pounds, and 2-1/2 pounds
- 11 pre-programmed settings; 3 crust shades; digital control panel; 12-hour delay timer
- Measuring cup and spoon, knead-blade removal tool, and instructions with recipes included
- Measures 18 by 10-1/2 by 11-4/5 inches; 1-year limited warranty
Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of West Bend 41300 Hi-Rise Electronic Dual-Blade Breadmaker
Customer Review: Great machine just not so great user manual
Summary: 5 Stars
This is my first ever bread machine so I don't have any other bread machine to compare it. I bought this for my parents for Christmas but they're too lazy to bother with it, so I'm the one making the bread.
Pros: easy to program, has a lot of features, makes good bread!
Cons: bad user manual recipes, blades hard to remove from the pan (but easily fixable by soaking in water and detergent)
Machine Mechanics, Usability and Features:
I like how this machine has two kneading blades, and I think many other machines at this price only have one blade. This machine also comes with many bread type settings including settings for french, quick (for those using baking soda instead of yeast), wheat, and sweet bread. I mainly use the basic setting on this machine though because I find it works best. In terms of hardware and mechanics, this bread machine is not hard to use. There a few buttons you need to press to get to the right setting (bread type, crust darkness, and loaf size) but they're easy to use and understand with the lcd screen. I found it a little tricky to line up the pan with the pan rest on the bottom of the machine but I think that's with every bread machine. You also have to make sure the blades are put in properly, that the grooves are matched up so the blades align with the rod. Otherwise, they won't spin. Some reviewers complained about how the blades would sometimes come off and get stuck inside the finished loaf and they'd have to fish the blades out--the machine comes with a metal hook for that--and there would be holes in the bottom. I personally don't care if there are holes in my bread. Bread with holes in the bottom is still edible and still delicious. Another reviewer complained about the opposite, how the blades would get stuck on the pan. This happened to me, too. I found the solution is just make sure you soak the pan with water and detergent immediately after you take the loaf out. All these are minor concerns and I wouldn't give this machine one fewer star because of them.
How Well It Bakes:
As for the resulting bread, be warned if you're a first time bread-baker (like me), it might require some tinkering before you find a recipe that works. My first three tries at sweet bread resulted in dense dough-like loaves, and I was about to blame the failure on the machine. However, on the fourth try, I used a different recipe, which I found on the Internet, and that loaf turned out amazing! For the first three loaves, I used recipes from the user manual. They not only did not work with the bread machine that they were written for nor did they taste very good in terms of ingredient proportions (e.g. too sweet, not enough raisins, etc.). So my advice is to disregard the recipes from the user manual and just look for highly rated bread machine recipes online or buy a bread machine recipe book like this one, Betty Crocker's Best Bread Machine Cookbook: The Goodness of Homemade Bread the Easy Way. I also found that, if you're using active dry yeast, you need to activate it before adding it to the machine, or your bread will not rise very well. This is called proofing the yeast. To do this, add the desired yeast with a spoon of sugar and add warm (not steaming) tap water to cover the yeast. Stir and wait 5 to 10 minutes and if you have good yeast, there should be lots of foam and bubbles. If you see no activity, throw the yeast away and buy a fresh batch.
This is the cinnamon raisin bread recipe that I used. I didn't have cinnamon but without it the plain raisin bread still turned out excellent. It's from the Betty Crocker website, and it makes a 1.5lb loaf.
1 cup water (I used hot, not steaming, tap water)
2 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
3 cups bread flour (I used regular all purpose white flour and it still turned out great! Make sure you don't pack the flour and try sifting it.)
3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 1/2 teaspoons bread machine yeast (I used active dry yeast, just make sure you proof it beforehand to activate it)
3/4 cup raisins
1. Before adding ingredients, proof the yeast and soak raisins in water for 5-10 minutes (to make them soft).
2. Add all ingredients (except the raisins) to the pan in the order according to the manual (liquids first, then dry ingredients, then yeast).
3. Put the machine on the basic setting (setting #1), light crust, 1.5lb loaf, and press start.
4. Drain raisins and add them in during the second kneading cycle.
I know I've written more than just a review because I added some tips and a recipe. I wanted to make the point that if you do decide to buy this bread machine and end up getting dense loaves with it, it's not the machine's fault. You just need the right recipe!
Description of West Bend 41300 Hi-Rise Electronic Dual-Blade Breadmaker
Fill your kitchen with the smells of fresh baked bread. Make scrumptious yet inexpensive, bakery-style artisan bread with our new West Bend electronic dual-blade breadmaker.Bread Machines
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