Good Points: This is a consistently good performer with excellent white, rapid white and wholemeal loaves. Packed with candied fruit, rum-infused raisins, vanilla and citrus, this classic Italian festive treat is guaranteed to get your guests in the Christmas spirit.

This traditional Swiss braided loaf is made from plain flour, eggs, butter, sour cream and yeast, and is brushed with egg yolk before baking to give it a shiny golden crust.Thirdly it is a good idea in general to use alive cake yeast because it activates in a lower temperature and is usually more active than the dry. The Kenwood BM250 bread maker gives flexibility, you can choose from a 500g, 750g and 1kg sized bread loaf, depending on how hungry you're feeling that is. The amount of water can be modified to get the best result, personally I use 220ml instead of the 240ml printed in the recipe book. And then there is the simple satisfaction that comes from baking itself- taking that time to transform a few ingredients into something utterly mouth-watering. We tested it with an 86% wholemeal recipe but even this had slightly quirky ingredients, including lemon juice (perhaps taking the place of the vitamin C powder that some recipes feature) and a combination of butter and skimmed milk powder, rather than one or the other.

If you own a BLEND-X PRO BLM800, type BLM80 only, please proceed through the following procedure to determine if you have a unit affected. The combination of black metal, stainless steel and glass, gives the BM450 a distinctive stylish look. The white loaves have a puffy crust and the texture is a little cake-like and open with a slightly salty taste. The only down sides I can see (apart from it taking 3h25mins to do a 1kg loaf) is that it doesn't always 'collect' all the flour from the corner of the machine, so loaves can come out with one corner of flour that crumbles away.With its healthy blend of grains and fruit muesli bread is one of the most nutritious breads you can eat.

Never use the kenwood recipies as a guideline because usually the recipies have flour-liquid ratio out of proportion. The issues I have experienced with this include the fact that the bread always collapses and there is always a hole at the bottom of the bread as the mechanism can not be removed. Washing it up was slightly fiddly, as you have to pop the two pieces of plastic apart, but it was still overall worth it. The basic white and rapid white loaves are slightly salty tasting with a puffy crust which collapsed inwards on the second test for basic white bread.You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. We’ve used sunflower and poppy seeds, but you can have fun with different taste and texture combinations-mix it up by adding sesame or pumpkin seeds next time.