Russell Hobbs 4461

...A local shop had the Russell Hobbs Rapide on special offer at £70. I'd read a couple of good reviews about the machine and thought that I'd probably be getting something better than my old machine, which was no longer made. The Rapide would make all the breads we'd come to love, plus dough, if we wanted pizza, and it would make jam. I knew I was too much of a traditionalist to use it to make jam, but I had the feeling that this was a versatile machine. ...
...I decided to ring the Russell Hobbs helpline and I was put onto their Home Economist. She was adamant that Hovis Bread Flour is the worst flour for breadmakers as it's too coarsely milled. When I described the sequence of events with the paddle her reaction was that the machine was almost certainly faulty and should be returned to the shop or direct to Russell Hobbs if I was outside the guarantee period.

I was outside the guarantee ... more

For more than two years I had made a loaf of bread nearly every day in my old Prima breadmaker. I made wholemeal, granary and white loaves. Sometimes I made raisin bread. I never had a failure. Then it started to make ominous noises and we thought the time had come to replace it. We didn't feel that it owed us anything as it had cost less than £50.

A local shop had the Russell Hobbs Rapide on special offer at £70. I'd read a couple of good reviews about the machine and thought that I'd probably be getting something better than my old machine, which was no longer made. The Rapide would make all the breads we'd come to love, plus dough, if we wanted pizza, and it would make jam. I knew I was too much of a traditionalist to use it to make jam, but I had the feeling that this was a versatile machine. There was even the capacity to make a loaf of bread in just under an hour.

The space required on the worktop wasn't too bad either at about 13" by 9", but you will need an extra 2 to 3" behind the machine to allow room for the lid to tip back. There's a decently-sized viewing window and sufficient flex to allow some flexibility about where the machine is placed. The packaging was appropriate for a machine of this type and I saved this in case I needed to return the machine.

The first loaf you make in a breadmaker should be a plain white loaf. This gives you the chance to fiddle about with the recipe to get the consistency of the dough right. You might need to add more water or more flour. Once you've got this right you can move onto the speciality breads. The flour I favour for bread making is Dove's Farm Strong Bread Four and I use Hovis yeast. My first loaf was a failure. Imagine a house brick, with the sides higher than the middle. If you round the corners off slightly you can visualise what I produced.

I cut a couple of slices and handed one to my husband. He struggled to find the appropriate words to describe the slice of bread. Finally, he succeeded.

"It's awful."

I had to agree.

The instruction book is good. It takes you through starting to make bread in a light-hearted way and gives a good selection of recipes and some trouble-shooting at the end. If the bread sinks it's possible that you're using too much liquid. I thought this was quite likely as the measurements are given in cups, which I always find imprecise. I tried again. I didn't think it was possible to make a worse loaf of bread than the first, but I proved myself wrong.

I kept trying to tweak the recipe to get a reasonable result. There were quite a few suggestions in the manual about how I could improve the loaves I was making. I tried different types of breads. Nothing succeeded though and I even stopped throwing the results out for the birds – they'd taken to avoiding our house. Then a couple of things happened which took my mind off the machine. My daughter returned from Nepal and I found myself travelling up and down the country on a regular basis and I discovered a locally-made wholemeal bread which was the equal of anything that I could make. Making our own bread wasn't a priority any more. I know that I should have packed the machine up and taken it back to the shop, but I didn't because I was sure that it was something that I hadn't quite got right yet.

What with one thing and another it was to be many months before I tried again, with predictable results. I watched the machine carefully one day and it seemed to me that just before the baking process started the paddle gave a quarter turn, the dough collapsed and this was then baked. I went into the shop where I bought the Rapide and enquired about this, only to be told that this was what the Rapide was programmed to do. They suggested that I change my flour and recommended the Hovis strong bread flour.

The change of flour had no effect and I decided to ring the Russell Hobbs helpline and I was put onto their Home Economist. She was adamant that Hovis Bread Flour is the worst flour for breadmakers as it's too coarsely milled. When I described the sequence of events with the paddle her reaction was that the machine was almost certainly faulty and should be returned to the shop or direct to Russell Hobbs if I was outside the guarantee period.

I was outside the guarantee period, by a matter of days and the shop declined to help. I packed the machine back in its original packing, wrapped it in bubble wrap and then cardboard and brown paper. Back it went to Russell Hobbs.

Some weeks later there was a knock at the door. There was a parcel for me. "I hope there's nothing fragile in there," said the man "it's clattering about something awful." It was my breadmaker. The packaging was woefully inadequate and the outside of the machine itself was dirty. There was an accompanying note.

"Our mechanics advise they have tested the breadmaker and made a perfect 1kg loaf."

I tried the machine again and I made another perfect brick. It is, of course, possible that I'm doing something wrong, but I've followed the instructions. I've used another breadmaker successfully and it's not as though I'm an inexperienced cook, so if I'm unable to make it work I think quite a few others might find themselves in the same boat.

The only thing left to me now is to cut my losses as I can see little point in returning the machine at my own expense to Russell Hobbs. I'd also think long and hard before I bought anything else made by Russell Hobbs.
 

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