Add Wild Rice!  Sometimes Beautiful Things Happen!

Several days ago I was making some bread using Sturdiwheat baguette mix. Oh my, these baguettes are SO good! And easy. I had some leftover cooked wild rice and I added a cup of cooked wild rice when I mixed the bread. Let it rise overnight (as in the instructions) and Poof! This bread, in addition to being a great baguette is also versatile. Don’t pass up this simple mix at Sturdiwheat.com.

As the snow melts this spring, let your creative juices flow.  Cook up a spring pancake creation using Sturdiwheat Pancake mix and any other edible ingredients you like.  Before you devour it, send us a picture of your masterpiece with the bag of mix somewhere in the picture by Thursday, April 8th and we will pick a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winner to receive $100, $50, and $25 gift certificates respectively.  Multiple entries per household welcome.  All contestants’ photos will be posted on this blog after the winners have been chosen.

Have fun!

Round 1

The purpose of the first round is to test the out-of-the-box performance of each machine.  This means that we pulled the new bread machines out of their boxes, plugged them in, followed the directions on the backs of the bags of 4 Sturdiwheat Bread mixes, and hit “START”.  We did not glance at any of the directions for the individual machines.  The results from Round 1 will not reflect the full potential of these bread machines.  It will allow us to compare them side by side on the same setting with the same mixes, and will reflect their user friendly qualities for those of us who dread reading the directions.  Round 2 will be more experimental and involves reading the directions to address individual problems revealed in Round 1.

         

  

Click model below to see review: 

 

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Breadman Corner Bakery

   

Breadman Pro

  

Breadman Ultimate Plus

  

Cuisinart Bread Maker

  

Panasonic Bread Bakery

  

Westbend

  

Zojirushi Home Bakery Supreme

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sturdiwheat Golden Grain was the first bread tested and dried out (crack in loaf) by the last day of testing, though it is still representative of size and crust thickness.

Breadman Corner Bakery
Cycle setting	#3 Whole wheat, B Crust Medium
Ease of programming	Very Easy
Length of cycle	4 hours
Temp of Water	100° F
Ease of removing bread from pan	Very Easy
Appearance of bread	Great
Price	$58.88

                         

Test Score:  5 Stars

                  

Test Notes:

This machine had the most consistent great results and was also the easiest to use.  Each of the Sturdiwheat loaves baked perfectly and had a nice crust that was true to the medium setting.  As you can see the Ole’s Wild Rice Bread came out very large, it was actually touching the lid about ¾ of the way through the cycle.  It may have produced a nice dome as well if it had the room!  It seems this machine is not available now and we will be testing another comparable Breadman soon to see if produces similar results.

 

 

The Sturdiwheat Golden Grain was the first bread tested and dried out (crack in loaf) by the last day of testing, though it is still representative of size and crust thickness

 

Breadman Pro
Cycle setting	#3 Whole Wheat, 1.5lb loaf, Med Crust
Ease of programming	Easy
Length of cycle	3 hours 43 minutes
Temp of Water	100° F
Ease of removing bread from pan	Very Easy
Appearance of bread	Good
Price	$90

                       

Test Score:  4 Stars

               

Test Notes:

This bread machine produced nice sized loaves.  It did not get an “Excellent” for appearance because the crowns of the loaves were very rough/choppy not smooth.  This did not affect the crust much but did look notably different than the other machines’ loaves.  It has a relatively short bake cycle for whole wheat coming in 77 minutes shorter than the longest cycle and only 11 minutes from the shortest cycle. 

 

The Sturdiwheat Golden Grain was the first bread tested and dried out (crack in loaf) by the last day of testing, though it is still representative of size and crust thickness

 

Cuisinart CBK-200
Cycle setting	#3 Whole wheat, 1.5lb loaf, medium crust
Ease of programming	Very Easy
Length of cycle	4 hours 25 minutes
Temp of Water	100° F
Ease of removing bread from pan	Very difficult
Appearance of bread	Below average
Price	$114.95

                       

Test Score:  1 Star

                 

Test Notes:

This machine did not perform well overall.  It was almost impossible to remove the pan from the machine.  The loaves were on the small side and the Limpa-Sweet Rye crust was overdone.  We would not recommend this bread machine out-of-the-box for Sturdiwheat Yeast Bread Mixes, but it might perform better on custom settings in Round 2.

 

The Sturdiwheat Golden Grain was the first bread tested and dried out (crack in loaf) by the last day of testing, though it is still representative of size and crust thickness

 

Zojirushi BBCC-X20
Cycle setting	Basic Wheat
Ease of programming	Moderate
Length of cycle	3 hours 40 minutes
Temp of Water	100° F
Ease of removing bread from pan	Very Easy
Appearance of bread	Excellent
Price	$198.20

        

Test Score:  4 Stars 

    

Test Notes:

This bread machine produces a traditional looking loaf that is nice shape for toast and sandwiches.  The programming was a little tricky because there are two arrows that move around to multiple settings at the same time with different options.  Also when you select “basic wheat” you cannot select a crust setting.  Three of the four loaves turned out very nice.  The Limpa-Sweet Rye did not rise fully.  This may be corrected with a different setting allowing for a longer rest.  Overall we liked this machine once we got past the programming and have high expectations for it in Round 2.

 

The Sturdiwheat Golden Grain was the first bread tested and dried out (crack in loaf) by the last day of testing, though it is still representative of size and crust thickness

 

Westbend 41026
Cycle setting	Whole Wheat #5 1.5lb
Ease of programming	Easy
Length of cycle	4 hours 30 minutes
Temp of Water	100° F
Ease of removing bread from pan	Very Easy
Appearance of bread	Below average
Price	$45-$75

                                                         

Test Score:  1 Star                                                                  

Test Notes:

This bread machine produced relatively small loaves compared to the other machines in this test.  The Golden Grain White bread was misshapen and only the Limpa-Sweet Rye formed an acceptable crown (though still very small in size). 

 

Breadman Ultimate Plus
Cycle setting	Whole Wheat, 1.5lb loaf, Med Crust
Ease of programming	Easy
Length of cycle	3 hours 32 minutes
Temp of Water	100° F
Ease of removing bread from pan	Very Easy
Appearance of bread	Excellent
Price	$100

                                                                  

Round 1 Score:  5 Stars 

Test Notes:

This bread machine produced nice sized loaves across the boards with beautiful crust and crowns.  The Limpa-Sweet Rye did have a split in the upper side but it did not affect the size or crust.  It’s easy to program, easy to remove the bread, reasonably priced, and has the shortest bake cycle out of the machines we tested. We highly recommend this model to anyone baking numerous types of breads who doesn’t want to spend a lot of time reading the directions. 

The Sturdiwheat Golden Grain was the first bread tested and dried out (crack in loaf) by the last day of testing, though it is still representative of size and crust thickness

 

Panasonic SD-YD250
Cycle setting	*Whole wheat, large
Ease of programming	Moderate
Length of cycle	*5 hours/4 hours
Temp of Water	100° F
Ease of removing bread from pan	Very Easy
Appearance of bread	Poor/Below average
Price	$131

*Two different settings were used to try to improve crust(see notes below).

Test Score:  2 Stars

Test Notes:

This machine did not perform well on this test.  The first two loaves baked in the Panasonic came out with a thick blackened crust.  These loaves were baked on the whole wheat setting(5 hours!) as a large loaf and the darkness of the crust was not selectable. The last two loaves were baked on the basic setting(4 hours) with large loaf and light crust selected.  This did somewhat improve the crust on the Garlic Basil and Ole’s Wild Rice but since the cycle needed tweaking to prevent burning the crust(you can see the very thick crust on the Golden Grain in the picture above), it did not score well on this test.  It might score better in our next test when we experiment with different settings.