I'm just getting into bread and students are loading my lots of
books, etc. The May/June 1994 issue of Cook's Illustrated mag
published by Boston Common Press Limited , Brookline Village, MA
lists and rates bread machines as follows:
National Bread Bakery, $375, Superb white and wheat, Rate A+
Zojirushi $339, white & wheat good, fully loaded, B+
West Bend Automatic, $200, wheat had pale sunken crust, very
goo white and raisin. Excellent manual recipe. B
Welbilt $170, stripped model. beautiful loaves. B
Hitachi $360, thick, chewy crusts, frequent problems with
crinkly tops, B-
Toastmaster, $200, Crusts thin and pale C+
Maxim, $275, Very good with white and wheat. Pulverizes
raisins, Poor results from recipe in manual C+
Regal, $330, Good wheat bread, raisins burned on bottom,
very good reciple in manual, Pan is better for smaller
recipes. rated C
Breadman, $199. Wheat bread rises perfectly... White and
raisin breads are disasters as is recipe. All breads
raised to top, then sunk. C
Sanyo, $200 White, Wheat, and raisin breads were toal
(total) disasters. This machine has a major problem,
an undersized pan. rated D.
Gosh, I guess we'll be kneading our own bread until all
the bugs are out. Hope this helps someone.