Cuisinart CBK250U Brushed Breadmaker, Stainless Steel

I have been looking for a bread maker for a long time now and I am so pleased that I chose this one.

First of all it does 2LB (or 1000g) loaves of bread as well as smaller 600g ones.

It has several different programmes on the menu, including pizza dough and cakes, Jam and compote.

It has a nut and seed drawer, but then so have many cheaper bread makers

There is a programme that you can set up for yourself so you can make bread your way.

So far I have stuck to the basic programme for a variety of breads and the quick setting for Brioche, which was a great success.

However the thing which sets this bread maker apart from the rest in my humble opinion is not all the settings, the ease of use, the ease of cleaning, the hold warm for 1 hour and timer settings, pr the fact that it is solid and well engineered, it is the fact that it produces a very light, very well risen loaf of bread with excellent texture, that is superb to eat.

Recommended without a moment of hesitation.

I purchased this device over the Panasonic as it looked a better fit for my kitchen and I liked some of the features that it has. Having had Cuisinart devices previously I had high hopes of good quality and functionality.

Upon receiving the breadmaker I was initially disappointed at the lack of recipes that were in the accompanying book. Not only that, the first 3 or 4 we used turned out extremely disappointing loaves, either way too crumbly, or a great looking crust, but completely sunken inside. We were only really able to use the rapid white loaf recipe to produce good results which was disappointing.

Another example of how bad the recipe book can be is where the instruction manual clearly says not to use sesame seeds in the nut dispenser as they are too small and fall through the gaps; yet a recipe for 'three seed bread' states to put them in the nut dispenser. It is sadly a poorly thought out book.

However, we purchased Bread Machine Easy: 70 Delicious Recipes That Make the Most of Your Machine and it has revolutionised our breadmaking and my opinion of the breadmaker. Although this book is designed to make 750g loaves, using these recipes as they are and the 700g setting of the Cuisinart has been superb. Not one bad loaf across a range of simple and fancy breads.

If you are looking to get this breadmaker then I strongly recommend that you purchase the book mentioned above and use that from the beginning as your experience will be far more positive.

EDIT: I am now a few months further on and I would be inclined to drop my review to three stars. The bread tin has not worn well; it deforms during the longer loaf cycles and has to be reshaped where the sides have bent in. Also the non-stick coating has started to wear off on the indents in the side of the tin. Finally, the seed dispenser intrudes sufficiently far that unless you reset it after it has dropped, you end up with a lopsided loaf. I really wish I had got the Panasonic :(

The fruit dispenser is very small for the quanity of fruit specifed in the recipe for sweet malt loaf. Results quite good but fruit only seems to dispense when the bread maker is set to start staight away, i set up on delay and the fruit stayed in the dispenser. Contacted Cuisinart and they said that as far as they were concerned this was a fault on the machine. So at the moment I have returned it and am waiting to hear test results from the online retailer.Would not reccomend