Anyone Own a Breadmaker?

My mum has one for many years during my childhood and she loved it... I liked smelling the freshly baked bread.. BUT, the freshness lasts only a couple of days before they are stale as there are less preservatives and my mum found the mixes were getting more and more expensive than you could buy a loaf for..

I use my food mixer for the first part for a few minutes, and another 2 or 3 minutes by hand to prepare the dough. So I let it rise and bake it is quite easy.

Yes I have a breadmaker but only use it making up the premix packets. My favourite is a sun dried tomato and Parmesan mix.

Yes I have got one - Hinari and I used it now for Christmas Eve and New Year when I want fresh bread but can't be bothered to go to a shop for a loaf. I've made all sorts of bread, successfully, in my machine but it becomes dangerous because everybody enjoys it so much. The only thing I would say is that machines only make a smallish size loaf and if you used the machine to mix and do the first prove you would be far better knocking back the mix and shaping it into a bloomer for the second prove in a warm oven. (then bake in the oven) Done this way it makes a huge bloomer twice the size of the machine loaf. Advice - get some dough hooks for your mixer and do it that way because it's not a small gadget to store.

I recently borrowed my mums because I didn't know if they'd be worth getting. I found it heavier than shop bread but it was ok. Unfortunately I was the only one who would eat it so wasn't worth buying one just for me in the end. I was lucky I could borrow one to find out before buying.