Philips Breadmaker HD9045 Review (and Milk Bread Recipe!)
domingo, 13 de septiembre de 2015
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A few weeks back, I got myself 2 new toys - the Philips Noodle Maker and Breadmaker. I really love how gadgets make cooking/ baking much easier and I can control what goes into my food. Of course, say goodbye to hot stoves and oily kitchens. Cleaning is much faster too!
Over the weekend, I tried my first loaf - a basic milk bread. It was an easy and foolproof experience, given that it was my first time using this Philips Breadmaker HD9045. Below is the milk bread recipe cum breadmaker review :)
Milk Bread
Yields 750g loaf
Ingredients
180ml low fat milk
1 egg, medium
70g yogurt (I use Meiji low fat fruit-flavoured yogurt)
25g unsalted butter (cut up into fine slices)
5g salt
25g sugar
320g plain flour
80g top flour
1 tsp yeast
Directions
1) Put all ingredients into the baking tin, in the above sequence.
2) Use Setting 5 (Sweet bread mode), Light crust, 750g.
It was a fuss-free 1st time baking experience and I loved peering through the transparent window!
After you have input the settings, the machine goes into several modes automatically - kneading, rising, kneading, rising and finally baking. I love how I need not have to monitor the bread like how I previously spent 4hrs manually baking it the traditional way (see recipe here). Such a great time-saver!
3) After 3 hours 22 min, there will be a continuous beep sound to tell you that the loaf is ready. Twist the baking tin gently to remove it from the machine.
4) Turn the baking tin gently upside down to remove the loaf. Lay the bread out to cool for at least an hour.
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| So happy with the round dome! |
5) Slice with a sharp bread knife. Enjoy with jam, eggs, ham or anything else you like. Keep the rest in an airtight container :)
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| My first loaf - Milk Bread :) |
Overall Review
Design
I love the clean and user-friendly look of the Philips Breadmaker. When the machine was placed on my counter-top, the control panel was at a perfect comfortable angle for keying in the settings.
The LCD-display control panel was pretty intuitive too. A "book" icon to change the mode, a "sack" icon with 2 sizes to change the loaf weight (either 750g or 1,000g) and finally a "loaf" icon with 3 colour-shades to denote how light or dark we want the crust to be. Even my helper was able to understand it :)
My favourite part of the design is the clear plastic viewing window at the top. With the machine set at 3+ hours, how could I resist peering in to see what kind of magic the dough was being transformed into?
Functions
The 750g and 1000g size options are perfect for a family of 5 persons like ours. Especially with the husband being a bread-lover, we finished the 1 loaf in 1 day. Nevertheless, for smaller families, it is okay to just keep the remaining bread in a airtight ziplock bag or freezer. After all, it's more worth the electricity to bake a larger loaf after spending 3+ hours on it, right? Ok and at this point, you must be wondering - What?! 3+ hours of electricity consumption? Fret not, for at least half of the time, the machine is quite stagnant as time is required for the dough to rise. :)
There are 14 easy-to-use preset programs and I have only used the Sweet Bread mode so far. Am really looking forward to trying out the other modes - especially the Light Rye and Jam modes. I read that you can even make your own pork floss under the Jam mode!
For most of us who can only afford the time to start the machine after we come back in the late evening after work, we will really appreciate the Preset Timer function which will enable us to delay baking for up to 13 hours. Imagine waking up at 6am to hear the Ding! sound and fresh bread aroma filling the kitchen. :)
Together with the breadmaker comes a user manual and recipe book with great tips on how best to use the machine, so let me mull through the different functions and experiment further. I just can't wait to try out more loaves!!! I will provide more comments along the way in this blog as I try out more breadmaker recipes, so read on under the "breadmaker" tags here!
Update (27 Sep 2015)
The breadmaker is so easy that our helper has got a good hang of it already. This is her milk loaf, with raisins and walnut. Love the perfect dome!
Update (21 May 2016)
If you would like to give this milk loaf a healthier twist, feel free to do what our reader, Pam Yin, did! She used 60g wholemeal flour and 260g plain flour (other ingredients stay the same) and the loaf was really soft and more wholesome :)
If you have tried this recipe too, share your photos with us!
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