I have tried several machines over the years and it’s always been the item that ends up at the thrift store. Though to be fair, I’ve always purchased them used. Every 5-10 yrs it seems I try again.
This time, I found a used Zojirushi and think I’ve finally got a winner. It makes an actual bread loaf shaped loaf, so no weird tall pieces of bread. The paddles are small enough that they don’t leave huge weird shapes in the bottom of the loaf and best of all, it seems to be turning out consistently good bread.
I’ve made white, wheat and cracked wheat loaves and they’ve all been great. The only one that wasn’t a huge hit was the rye, so still working on that. The kids now only want mommy bread
I made some French bread dough that I cooked in mini loafs that was also really good, but so far that’s the only thing I’ve cooked out of the machine. I’m looking forward to trying more out of the machine, but it’s so nice to have an easy, good loaf with only a few minutes of work!
They have a newer model that has a second heating element in the lid, which seems like it’s probably even better, so I’m keeping an eye out for a used one.