Panasonic Automatic Bread Maker

If you’re new to bread baking, Panasonic’s Automatic Bread Maker could be for you. The machine is easy to use and yields seemingly foolproof good results.The settings are easy to use, and you can use the machine to make white, whole wheat, multigrain or French bread, or even make pizza dough or use the machine on a bake-only setting . The separate yeast dispenser means you don’t have to worry about layering dry ingredients over wet ingredients. Instead, yeast is automatically dispensed at the appropriate moment in the process, ensuring perfectly risen bread every time.Experienced bread-machine users might be disappointed that the control panel does not indicate at what stage in the process the machine is, and that there are no programmable settings for your own recipes. However, there is a “dough only” setting that enables you to use the machine to mix your own recipes, then remove them after the first rise and shape them to bake in a conventional oven.A problem I encountered is that the loaf sizes in Panasonic’s machine are “Medium,” “Large,” and “Extra-Large,” when bread-machine recipes measure loaf size by pounds. Nothing in the manual offered a description of the loaf sizes. A call to Panasonic’s excellent customer-service hotline got the answer (A “Medium” loaf is 1 1/2 pounds, “Large” is 2 pounds and “Extra-Large” is 2 1/2 pounds).While the instruction manual is helpful, the recipes aren’t quite as user-friendly. The ingredient measurements for some of the recipes are in strange amounts, like 4 7/16 cups of flour, perhaps due to converting the measurement from ounce measurements (which are also given). If you have a kitchen scale, you’d be wise to use it to measure your quantities.The Panasonic Automatic Bread Maker can be found for under $130, making it an affordable option for easy homemade bread.According to reviews, the Panasonic SD-YD250 is the best mid-range bread machine, sitting right in between the fancy Zojirushi BBCC-X20 (*Est. $200) and the very basic Sunbeam 5891 (*Est. $55). Reviewers say it’s a sturdy, flexible bread machine that is easy to use and quiet. The Panasonic bread machine makes horizontal loaves, which many owners prefer to the vertical bread produced by some other models. Although the Panasonic does not offer customized cycles like the Zojirushi bread machine, many owners don’t miss this feature. Oddly, this breadmaker lacks a viewing window, a feature that’s pretty much standard. The durability of the Panasonic breadmaker is indicated by owners who write that they have used their machines for years, as well as by the relatively few complaints of breakage.More than 500 owner reviewers have rated the Panasonic SD-YD250 breadmaker at Amazon.com and more than 60 have posted at Epinions.com, providing a valuable gauge of overall user satisfaction. At enthusiast website BreadInfo.com, the editors offer a one-page review of the Panasonic bread machine, where they discuss its features and reputation but don’t say how (or even if) they have tested it. For that reason, we weigh the large number of user reviews more heavily than this single professional review.