Healthy Living Books Kitchen & Housewares

Rating: - Dont hesitate, just buy it!
So so pleased with this machine. I did debate over wheather to buy it as its not cheap but im very pleased I did. Ive had it for about a month now and havent bought any bread since and cant ever imagine going back to tasteless shop bought stuff. Yuck. Its very easy to use and it produces delicious bread, pizza dough, raisin loaves etc etc etc. As others have said, you cant beat waking up to the smell of fresh bread in the morning and the satisfaction of seeing your children eating healthy homemade bread. Our favourite bread is made with a Sainsbury's Sunflower packet mix but everything we've made so far has been perfect. If you're thinking about going for this machine but cant decide, just go for it, you wont be dissapointed.

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Rating: - You get what you pay for!
There is a golden rule of life which I has been ably demonstrated to me and this is another example where you do in fact get more for paying more. The 255 is the most expensive breadmaker on the market by far. I have had 3 breadmakers before finally splashing out £88 (Amazon) for the Rolls Royce model. It is built better than any other and runs very quiet. So quiet that you could actually set this to come on at 4 in the morning to give you a fresh laof in the morning without it waking you up through the ceiling! The Prima, Morphy Richards and Biffnett models I have tried would have certainly been an unwelcome alarm clock.
The pan is a high quality cast unit with good non stick coating. Oddly it is the only breadmaker where the pan sits loosely in the oven chamber without a lock in mechanism which all others has. It does have 4 small lugs which correspond to slots in the base, but it does not lock in tight. I was so worried that I had a faulty unit that I drove down to Comet and looked at the one on the shelf - exactly the same! The paddle blade is also loose on the spindle, which again looks odd, but this is in the design to allow it to be removed more easily after cooking. Once the unit is mixing the pan is held steady with the clockwise movement of the motor and connector underneath the breadpan.
The bread is a better quality than I have had before. This is because the programmes are generally longer than other models allowing for a longer rise period. I have had no disasters so far and I have used an assortment of bread flour with the recipies in the manual.
It's early days so I cant comment on its reliability. Very pleased so far. Its Panasonic from now on. It's just a shame they only come in plain white plastic finish. A nice stainless steel version would be very nice indeed, to match everything else I have, but never mind.
If you are looking for a bread machine, take it from someone who has been baking home cooked bread for a few years and dont bother with any other model! Get out your credit card and get the best.

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Rating: - Fantastic product! Fears due to the bad reviews totally unfounded!!!
Panasonic SD255 breadmaker with raisin/nut dispenser

After reading all the reviews for this breadmaker and having concerns over the poor reviews, I decided that the majority of good reviews could not be wrong and I have purchased this breadmaker.

I have now made both normal bread and Gluten Free Juvela Bread and I have to say I am delighted. Even the Rapid Bake does a fantastic loaf!

Despite the higher cost over other machines, this little machine will have paid for itself in 3 months in this house.

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Rating: - Excellent Breadmaker
We have now had our machine some 10 weeks and would not go back to factory baked bread, its far cheaper,easier to slice and certainly more tasty than any plant baked bread and better than most small bakeries turn out also.
We make approximately 6 loaves per week some wholemeal, some white and our favourite granary and I can say we have not had any problems mixing and matching the recipes.
I made some dough and produced some bread rolls last week and they were wonderful too.
If you are thinking about a breadmaker please choose this one as its the best and you will be really glad you made the purchase, its also gone down in price since I bought mine.

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Rating: - LOVE it!
With the ever-spiraling costs of the bog-standard loaf in the supermarkets, and given an increased need for sandwiches (with my daughter starting full-time school and therefore the need of packed lunches)I figured it might be a good idea to invest in a breadmaker. My parents have the 254 Panasonic breadmaker, and after doing a test run in theirs I decided to invest in the 255. I haven't regretted it for a minute.

It's easy to use, you have loads of different programs (so if you're organised, you can set it to have a loaf first thing in the morning when you get up, or, like I've had to today, you can wack out a "rapid bake" loaf instead) and you have all the measuring tools you'd need. I've done white loaves, wholemeal loaves, sandwich loaves and I've used it to make dough for some Danish cinnamon rolls. It's fantastically easy to use and clean. Yes the alarm telling you your loaf is ready isn't terribly loud, but then who wants a siren going off and scaring you witless?

Biggest testament to it - my bread-shy son will now eat sandwiches, and my daughter, after years of nibbling the soft bread and leaving her crusts, now consumes all the bread put in front of her.

I suppose my biggest concern is what it's doing to my electricity bill, oh, and it's not doing wonders for my waistline but it's definately, hands-down one of the most useful gadgets I've ever bought. I LOVE IT!