This was not love at first sight.
My Morphy Richards breadmaker sat there for weeks. “I’ll get round to it,” I told my husband, “In the meantime you have bread in the fridge.”
My first effort was gluten free fruitcake. It was dry and crumbly and needed more butter and fruit.
As a newbie, I don’t know what to expect from a bread maker, hadn’t read any bread maker reviews, nothing.
Next was malt loaf that sank in the middle. Probably due to too much liquid.
Our first wholemeal loaf was more successful but a bit doughy. Reading the instructions I realised not to let the loaf cool in the machine as condensation gets in. After this we had more success.
So my advice is to master the basic loaf first…
Oh joy! A perfect loaf of white bread. Don’t you love how the crust has cracked like on a baguette?
Mmm! and the smell of proper baked bread filled the house! I think we’ve cracked it guys…
Next came the sandwich loaf, still plain but using butter rather than oil. Firm textured enough to slice for sandwiches.
Spreading butter on toasted sandwich loaf… to dip in our dippy eggs from Friday’s post.
A few weeks later and we’re no longer buying bread.
Ted loves it. He likes watching the machine knead the ingredients, “Lift me up mummy” he asks wanting to look.
He always eats his sandwiches now!
Our favourite loaf is granary or granary 50% white using Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference wholegrain bread flour.
For plain loaves we’ve used Sainsbury’s standard strong white bread flour and for gluten free, Dove’s Farm blend. We’ve used Hovis strong wholemeal bread flour for wholemeal loves.
Wholemeal loaves can be baked with crushed vitamin C tablets to give a better rise. I use Ester C capsules filled with powder.
Finally I revisited gluten free. The booklet doesn’t give a plain GF recipe but instead sun-dried tomato version or cheese and mustard. This loaf benefits from being toasted or refreshed for a few seconds in the microwave.
As a Morphy Richards‘ Home of the House Proud Innovator I received a Morphy Richards Premium Plus Bread Maker to review. All views are my own which is why it’s ok for me to gripe about the lousy instruction manual.
Pros and cons of the Morphy Richards Bread Maker
Pros:
- Easy to use, just tip everything in in the right order
- No need to weigh ingredients, convenient plastic measuring cups and spoons provided
- Easy to clean, loaves turn out of the tin easily (see note about blade below)
- Cheaper than buying artisan bread
- Loaves stay fresh in a bag in the fridge for up to a week
- 19 programmes to make different loaves (plus cakes, jam and even pasta!)
- Substantial gadget that feels like it will give good service for years (I’ll get back to you on that!)
- Quick, five minutes work then walk away
- Clean hands!
- No kneading!
Cons:
- Flimsy paper instruction manual quickly gets tatty
- Information poorly laid out, everything is there but there’s a lot of flicking backwards and forwards to find what you need.
- Keypad not very intuitive, so few buttons it takes a while to remember what sequence to press them in.
- Tiny display panel doesn’t light up. Some people might struggle to view it.
- Takes up as much room as a microwave and heavy to move – well it is an oven you know.
- End of time beeper could be more obvious – unclear whether it’s finished baking or in keep warm phase
- Loaves all look the same
- Blade difficult to remove when cleaning
- Loaves have a hole in their bottoms – more prominent in some recipes than others
Verdict:
Don’t expect overnight success, get to know the machine gradually.As someone with weak wrists, not having to knead is a real boon. Making bread with this machine, once sussed is something that has seamlessly entered our lives with very low effort.
We noticed big air bubbles with a packet mix but never with our own mix. The texture makes wonderful sandwiches and we’re smitten so much we’ve stopped buying mass produced bread.
My only criticism is the appalling black and white manual that does nothing to inspire and has a layout that serves only to confuse. A single panel with instructions for a basic loaf would help people get started more easily.
Bread Maker Recipes featured:
I’ve only managed about six or seven so far but here is the whole list:
Basic
Soft grain
Soft grain 50%
Brown
Italian herb
Cheese and onion
Raisin
Sugar free
Sugar and salf free
Sun-dried
Wholewheat
Wholewheat seeded
Granary loaf
Granary 50% white
Mixed fruit loaf
Orange and cranberry
Brioche
Sandwich loaf
Soft grain sandwich
French bread
White bread rolls
Wholewheat bread rolls
Hot cross buns
Ciabatta
Bagels
Croissant
Tea cakes
Marmalade
Raspberry and apple jam
Bread mixes from packets programme
Malt loaf
Irish soda bread
Corn bread
Gluten free sun-dried tomato loaf
Gluten free cheese and mustard loaf
Gluten free chocolate cake
Gluten free fruit cake
Fastbake programme
Pizza dough
Pasta!
Banana and nut quick bread
Porridge oats bread
Madeira cake
Mixed fruitcake
Packet cake mixes (apparently?!)
I have to say, I am slightly surprised. I would have expected a bread maker to make bread perfect every time, without much hassle. I have always liked the idea of a bread maker, but because i have a small kitchen, I’d never buy one. I hate having loads of stuff on my kitchen counter, it means there is less space to work.
*kisses* HH
I’d fight anyone off who wanted to take it away now!
I had two Morphy Richards breadmakers and wore them both out! The company was brilliant with spare parts and discounted replacements but I’ve now moved onto making my dough in my Kenwood and baking it in the oven. Your review has made me miss my good old breadmaker though. I used to put all the ingredients in it the night before set it to finish baking just as we got up. What a marvellous machine.
That’s good to know although I hope I don’t wear mine out!!
I really need to get myself organised & get a breadmaker – espec now I read that they magically get kids to eat their butties! Great review, thanks.
You got there Sarah It was worth the trial and error. That crusty white loaf looks fantastic!
Glad you had some eventual success with it! I’ve never used a breadmaker and prefer to do by hand, though it would be more convenient with the machine I think will just stick to elbow grease!
I hope to taste that sundried tomato loaf when I next come, it looks wonderful.
I used my MR breadmaker for a month and got bored of throwing away bread day after day because it just didn’t taste as I wanted it to. I was using it mainly for kneading the last week or two but finally gave up that too. An the recipes from the book were in the same time too sweet and too salty… It was a different model, but for me MR us a no, thank you.
However I am glad you managed to obtain a decent loaf out of it!
Your basic loaf looks fantastic, I can almost smell it. Have you thought about making some homemade butter? We once went on a school trip and had to make bread and butter from scratch “like they did in the old days”. It was the most fantastic thing I had ever tasted.
So pleased to hear you’ve learnt to love it! I have a slightly older version of the Morphy Richards breadmaker and love it, although I completely agree about the tatty instruction/recipe leaflet. Planning to laminate mine before it becomes unusable. Sounds like yours has many more recipes – mine only has a few. I’m looking forward to trying the jam recipes in the autumn – can’t quite imagine it somehow!
Am glad you’ve warmed towards your bread maker, I honestly think there is nothing better than homemade bread. There’s also the added plus of having the smell of bread wafting through the house… 😛
Home made bread is irresistable – the smell, the texture, the hint of warm. Then toasted later to eat with fresh butter dripping down your chin (and arm if it’s miss greedy me!) Glad it works for you.
I have the same model and I’ve only fluffed one when I used the timer – I got up in the morning but was confused with the cooking and warming bread symbol – it’s the same so I thought it was in the warming cycle but it needed 38 minutes – came out too soft. Other than that every loaf has been perfect and yummy but I’ve only used the basic cycle and use the Laucke or Lighthouse bread mixes because I’m lazy and love the flavour of them anyway. Don’t follow the recipes as it does these fine. Will one day experiment and do the other recipes but I’m fine with making wholemeal and the odd vienna bread. Agree the manual could have been laid out better and the print bigger. Love your review Sarah. I’ve had mine for under a month and find it so easy to use.
Thank you – I agree the bread baking and bread warming symbols are tricky to differentiate and the display isn’t lit. I make a note what the finish time will be at the start of setting it up.
reading your comments ive decided to get some money together and buy a breadmaker,theres also a fentastic site for recipes that allisons run called http://www.madforbaking.co.uk .so im off now to plan my purchase thanks.
I have had the same breadmaker for 2 weeks now and have used it from day one with complete success. I put the instruction book in a plastic covered folder to keep nice, as I refer back each time I make a loaf. My friend was so impressed with the smell and taste of my bread, she rushed out and brought herself one! Try the ‘brioch’ recepe, put on some icing, and ‘heaven’.
i have just purchased this breadmaker as we are moving west and there will be limited resources for fresh bread. Do you have any favourite recipes to share? I love wholemeal and grainy varieties 🙂 Thanks for an honest review. I look forward to getting this in the post!
My favourite is the mixed white and granary from the brochure that comes with the machine. Hope you are pleased with the results!
Ive just been given a brad maker by a friend moving overseas, but no instructions. Can anyone tell me where i might get a copy?
google company customer service and they should have downloadable pdf for your breadmaker
Breadmakers are a revelation. I love them. It’s always interesting reading about peoples experiences with them. Advice to me (which works every time) is always add a good dollop of butter (browns the crust nicely) use milk instead of water for protein and again colour and taste and always put the yeast in the bottom of the pan and everything else on top. Also worth mentioning that if you do dough option, knead the bread and the world is your oyster in terms of shape and texture. Also, just have to say LIDL’s White Bread Flour is cheaper and just as good/if not better than other supermarkets and it’s so much cheaper!
Great tip about LIDL white bread flour, I will hunt some of that out.