Or a sausage bacon and egg sarnie
it's wonderful in the Winter - set the timer and wake up to the smell of freshly baked bread. Get up, shower, remove loaf and eat whilst still totally fresh and warm, all without having to go outside to the bakers.
They cost aroud £50. Mine has a compartment where I could add stuff such as nuts, dates, whatever) which are added into the bread at the right time. If it weren't so big I'd bring it with me here.
best breakkies (when done by a good little chef like myself)
Just searched ... it looks the same as this one :
http://www.electricshopping.com/shop...ID=1761&cID=47
Except it's all white and I didn't think it was a Breville. Either they used to sell it under a different name (as I say, I've had it a few years) or it is a Breville and I just forgot.
Do get one with a dispenser thingy - you can add all sorts of exciting things into your bread.
All bread machines are not created equal: mine's a Panasonic and is the one most people swear by, although I've heard good things about Morphy Richards too. The ones they give away with catalogue orders or sell for £20 are rubbish; if you're lucky 1 loaf in 2 will work, whereas mine gives utterly consistent, perfect results EVERY time. I've had it for years now, longer than I can remember.
The crust tends to be on the softer side, bit like the 'in store baked' bread you'd get in UK supermarkets (but not soft and squidgy like plastic square bread). You can't get really crusty crusts in the machine, but could make the dough then take it out and blast in in a hot oven instead of cooking in the machine. There are programs for all this sort of thing. It's also fantastic at pizza dough - 45 mins, tip on work surface, roll out, top, in oven, 'home made' fresh pizza in an hour, most of which you spend doing other stuff.
I have a standard, everyday loaf as detailed above, the mix of white and granary (the toast from this is off the planet terrific) but dabble in other types, like the French Bread program (which produces something like a baguette, but in a loaf shape).
It works out very cheap; haven't costed it exactly but a loaf big enough for a greedy family of four will do lunch, a bit of afternoon nibbling and toast the next morning, for a little over a franc, I guess - one bag of bread flour makes almost two large loaves, and costs very little from places like Aldi.
And there's all sorts of fiddling about with nuts, seeds, cheese, bacon, onion, raisins, berries, spices, etc which can be done. I do a Christmas morning special with raisins, cranberries and cinnamon, replacing the water with orange juice, which comes out like a giant spiced currant bun. Slice, toast, spread with gently oozing butter...
Rats. Curse this low carb diet.
kodokan
But yes, if I was buying nowadays, that would be mine. I think it's just a cosmetic update. Sometimes Amazon does deals on them, especially in the run up to Christmas - I got my parents the non-auto one for about £40 a couple of years ago.
The raisin thing is good - when it's automatic it's all part of the chosen program so it releases the raisins/nuts/goodies just before the last mix before baking (if you put them in at the beginning before all the mixing/ kneading, then the blade bashes them to pieces). Otherwise, a bleeper goes off to tell you to tip in the raisins, but that of course relies on you paying attention and being around 2.5 hours after you switched it on. Really, go automatic.
If you go here, you can download the operating instructions/ recipe book, and have a skim to see if the recipes are the sort of thing you like the sound of:
http://www.panasonic.co.uk/html/en_G...l#anker_220239
kodokan
Constructing an English breakkie transforms to best bread maker
And there is a recipe for cheese and bacon bread. Which is sort of breakfasty. Yes, that's it - make a cheese and bacon loaf, slice it, and use it to make Eggy Bread (French Toast really, but if I call it that it'll be off-topic ).
The butcher's on Albisriederplatz sells decent schweinsbratwurst (including a herby one which we grilled on Xmas eve) and they will slice bacon to your specified thickness - which made great sarnies on Xmas day morning. The woman serving speaks flawless English (well...with a bit of an American accent but you can't have everything) too.
Cheers,
Nick
But how do you control the level of saltiness as the rate the egg mix reduces will be uncertain, as well as the size of the eggs.
BTW - Coop sells butter with fleur de sel.
Flaky and not crystally is good.
When I first encountered unsalted butter as a teenager in France many years ago, I salted it at first, but then dropped the habit, and haven't bought salted butter since.
Tom