Vegan or Vegetarian. Use oil to make this a vegan bread machine recipe, or substitute with butter and it will still be vegetarian.

Ready to do more with your bread machine? Make Whole Wheat Bread in the Bread Maker, Seed Bread, Thyme Bread, Oatmeal Bread, or Bread Maker Pizza Dough.

While it’s not billed as compact, this basic bread maker is relatively small. This makes it a good buy for a space-poor kitchen. The size is reflected in its pan, which is tall rather than wide, and can make small (1lb) or large (1.5lb) loaves with three crust colours. Let it work: The bread machine will now take over for you, and knead, proof, and bake your bread dough! Where all bread makers will have the standard white and wholemeal settings, as you’ll see with our top-scorers, many of them come with much more. To make the most of your machine look out for bread makers that not only make bread but other items too. Speciality bread

Each programme will calculate the temperature and baking time and/or function. There should be an option for selecting how brown you prefer the crust to be, and a delay start. This allows you wake up or come home to fresh bread or make sure you’re there to remove it. There’s even an automatic dispenser for extras, such as nuts and raisins, though it has to be removed and replaced at the beginning of each bake, rather than a permanent dispenser that can be added to throughout. A 15-hour delay timer and 60-minute keep-warm function is great for fitting around a busy lifestyle, too. Pasta is typically messy to make, this setting will knead the ingredients together before needing to be chilled in the fridge. And pizza dough is notoriously wet, and therefore can be just as messy. This setting will knead the ingredients and let the dough prove before it’s ready to be used for pizza. Jam Hate waiting? The Fastbake is the bread maker for you. Equipped with two rapid programmes for making a 1.5lb or 2lb loaf in less than an hour, it’s perfect for a busy lifestyle. This machine boasts 12 programmes that include wholewheat, French, sweet, cake, jam and dough.Type of controls: Choose between manual controls or digital ones. The latter typically offers more options in terms of settings. The first breadmaker was released in Japan in 1986 by Panasonic, the former Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. It is based on a year of research by project engineers and software developer Ikuko Tanaka. He trained with the head baker at Osaka International Hotel to learn how to optimally knead bread and involved adding special ribs inside the machine. The Funai Electric company claims to have produced the world's first full-fledged entry automatic bread-making machine on the market, sold as the Raku-Raku Pan Da in Japan in 1987 and sold in the US as the Dak Auto Bakery model FAB-100-1. A bread making machine or bread maker is a home appliance for turning raw ingredients into baked bread. It consists of a bread pan at the bottom with one or more built-in paddles mounted in the center of a small special-purpose oven. This small oven is usually controlled by a simple built-in computer using settings input through its control panel. While they’re not a necessity, there are a number of features that some bread makers come with that only serve to enhance the baking experience. Automatic ingredient dispenser The downside is that this bread maker is quite tall, so only just squeezes below some wall cabinets (although this minimises its footprint). Also, there’s no viewing window and it’s pricier than most. Its parts aren’t dishwasher-safe. There’s a lot of information in the instructions – this could feel overwhelming to a baking newbie.