Morphy Richards 48280 > Reviews > Morphy Richards 48280

Author's product rating:   

Performance	Excellent
Ease of use	Very easy
Durability	Everlasting
User's Manual	Excellent
Value for money	Excellent

Advantages:	Very, very tasty bread !
Disadvantages:	Reliability of bread pan

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

This is a very simple, easy to use bread machine, which practically guarantees good results every time if the instructions for the recipes are followed.

It has a good selection of programmes but to be honest the one you will use most often will be the Basic Bread No.1. Having said that the others are always there if you want them, but unless you really plan on making jam (which I found was a bit messy) you probably won't use them that much, as they can be a bit fiddly. For example, the cake programme will, in most recipes, require hand mixing of the ingredients first, which sort of detracts from the simplicity of just throwing everything into the bread pan and setting it going. The dough programme is very useful for hand shaped breads, pizza bases and the like - it makes the nasty business of spending hours kneading just disappear...

The overnight, 13 hour timer, is useful, and works great - just don't forget to take the loaf out of the machine before the 60 minute keepwarm period is up or it will very likely be very soggy.

The price of this machine is very cheap compared to some of the other bread makers, and although it may seem like it doesn't have as much to offer you having only 12 programs, don't let that put you off, as I said earlier you probably won't use most of them anyway.

I only have two cons to this machine - the recipe book and the bread pan itself. The recipe book is a very minor issue, I didn't find the recipes in it very appetising (or got that good a loaf from them) but that's easily solved by buying another recipe book, I can highly recommend 'The Ultimate Bread Machine Cookbook' by Jennie Shapter. The instructions in the book regarding operation of the machine are very good, I have to say, very easy to understand, not that the machine is complicated to use anyway.
The other problem is the bread pan that comes with the machine. I've had my machine almost three years now and it's been used on very nearly a daily basis, and it's still going strong. However, when it was a year old, the pin that the kneading blade sits on decided to detach itself from the pan. Luckily enough, it was still under warranty and so Morphy Richards replaced it without question. Unfortunately 18 months later (which takes us to last month) exactly the same thing happened again, so I'm going to have to replace the bread pan myself this time. Not too sure what it will cost, as I've been very busy with work and not had time to track down a contact number for the right department at Morphy Richards (having misplaced my original manual at some point). Once is unfortunate, twice is annoying...this is the only reason it drops a star on the rating.

Having said all that I would still recommend this machine, particularly if you're a bit dubious about using one for the first time. If my mum can use this (I bought her one for Christmas), anyone can... : )
Almost three years old and still cooking fine despite very heavy use, the only thing that would make me change this (excepting the bread pan failing again!) is the size of the loaf, with a fairly large family sometimes I do two or three loaves a day, so maybe it's time to look for a machine with a bigger capacity.

You just can't beat the smell and taste of home-made bread, and this is a very good machine to get you started.