Bread winners.(Gift Guide)(breadmakers)(Cover Story)(Evaluation)

Breadmakers allow virtually anyone to bake bread with just minutes of effort and few skills beyond the ability to measure ingredients and push buttons. What's more, they produce bread that's better than respectable in quality. And they allow you to control what goes into your loaf, which might appeal to people with food allergies or gluten intolerance. Until fairly recently, however, breadmakers have generally been expensive. But prices have been dropping; the average machine now costs $57, though higher-end brands can cost up to $200.

Our tests show that you don't need to spend much to get a decent machine. We rated six models, priced from $40 to $200. All were judged good or very good overall.

RISING TO OUR CHALLENGE

Putting the machines through their paces was easy--no surprise, because breadmakers leave little for the baker to do aside from choosing a recipe and measuring properly. The rest is even simpler: Place ingredients into the bread pan, insert the pan into the machine, close the cover, and select the right cycle (for white, whole wheat, etc.).

In a typical machine, a dough paddle fitted on a shaft in the pan's base mixes the ingredients and then kneads the dough, stopping at programmed times to allow for rising before kneading again. An electric heating coil then bakes the bread.

A good loaf, in our view, is symmetrical and evenly baked; has an interior crumb that's somewhat soft, moist, and airy; and a crust that's crisp but not too thick or hard.

All the machines made good or very good white bread, at a cost of about 90 cents per loaf. All made very good raisin bread, too. But the Magic Chef CBM-310 didn't do well with whole wheat, producing short, very dense loaves.