Bread machine

A bread making machine or bread maker is a home appliance for baking bread. It consists of a bread pan (or "tin"), at the bottom of which are 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 via a control panel. Most bread machines have different cycles for different kinds of dough—including white bread, whole grain, European-style (sometimes labelled "French"), and dough-only (for pizza dough and shaped loaves baked in a conventional oven). Many also have a timer to allow the bread machine to activate without operator attendance, and some high-end models allow the user to program a custom cycle.

The first breadmaker was released in Japan in 1986 by the Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (now Panasonic). The Funai Electric company claims to have produced the world's first automatic bread-making machine, sold as the Raku Raku Pan Da in Japan in 1987 and sold in the USA as the Dak Auto Bakery model FAB-100-1.

A decade later they had become popular in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States. While not viable for commercial use due to the fixed loaf shape and the limited duty cycle, bread machines are very suitable for home use, producing their best results when dealing with kneaded doughs.

To create a loaf of bread, ingredients are measured into the bread pan in a specified order (usually liquids first, with solid ingredients layered on top) and the pan is then placed in the breadmaker. The order of ingredients is important because the instant yeast used in breadmakers is activated by contact with water, so the yeast and the water must be kept apart until the program starts.

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