Hamilton Beach Bread Baker

[5pak]

I've recently received a Hamilton Beach Bread baker as a gift. Specifically, this guy: http://www.hamiltonbeach.com/breadmakers-homebaker-2-lb-breadmaker-29881.html.

Any other users had one of these before? It's a mixer and a baker, which I'm not sure yet how I feel about. I don't like not having control over the whole process (of course, I suppose I can always just turn the thing off at whatever point I want to take back control). It also calls for machine yeast, but can I still use other kinds of yeast if I prefer? I don't really want to be restricted to only cooking certain types of bread or certain types of ingredients. I'd like some opinions from anyone who's had one before. Is it a good machine or is it more of a giant piece of plastic to take up space?

[5pak]

Thanks for the info! We're giving it a try tonight, so this info will help. Looking forward to many great loaves!

[1967mama]

I've had one or two other bread machines over the years before this one, and with any of them, I didn't use specific bread machine yeast.

From Costco, you can get instant yeast which is almost exactly the same as bread machine yeast. You put it on top of the flour and keep it with the dry ingredients.

You can also get active dry yeast, which you mix ("proof") with warm water and the sweetener. If you are using this yeast, I would put in the very warm water and sweetener and let it get bubbly for 5-10 minutes (depending on how warm your kitchen is) Then add the remaining ingredients and start the machine. If you are leaving the ingredients overnight, I wouldn't use this type of yeast, but rather the instant yeast that sits on top of the dry ingredients.

Anyone can buy a huge block of yeast from Costco -- just store it in the freezer in a jar. Its wayyyyy cheaper to buy it this way, even if you end up throwing half of it out after a year or two!