Cuisinart CBK-100 2 LB Bread Maker,Compact Automatic

I am an experienced bread baker, but my wrists are no longer up to kneading large amounts of dough, and I wanted something that could handle most of the process for me without the interruptions for punching down, second rising and so on. I had my eye on this bread maker for some time and finally purchased it as a pre-Christmas baking treat for the cook. This machine did an excellent job of mixing, kneading and going through the multiple rising process. My very first loaf, the plain white bread recipe provided, was perfect in every way, firm texture and evenly browned, and I'm looking forward to converting some of my own personal bread recipes and favorites for the machine as well as using it to prep my own French and pizza doughs. I will even give the Jam program a try. I've seen a few entries here about poor results, so here are a few hints I can share that might help you have perfect results. Your bread will be as good as the ingredients you use to make it. Don't be afraid to experiment and to bring your own experience to the process. The recipes included are good guidelines for getting used to the capabilities of the machine. 1. Use high quality bread flour. I use King Arthur unbleached bread flour. Bread flour has more gluten and will produce a bread with a better, finer texture, no gaps or bubbles. There are other good flour products such as Arrowhead Mills. Just don't use All Purpose flour. 2. Use a high quality yeast. I use SAF Instant and there are several brands of good yeast cultured for bread machines. 3. Weigh your flour instead of just measuring it. The flour moisture content varies with the weather and amount of moisture in the air. For consistent results, always weigh your flours. 1 Cup of white bread flour in a neutral humidity condition = 5 ounces. 4. When you hear 6 bells, repeated several times, you can remove the bread pail, gently remove the dough and take out the mixing paddle. Reshape the bread into a ball and gently replace it in the pail and return to the machine. That is all you have to do in terms of extra work on your part. It's just nicer not to bake the paddle into the bottom of the bread, You will still have a very small indent in the center bottom where the post for the paddle is, but it does not affect the bread or slicing. There are other features- pasta, quick breads, dough only, jam- I think that this machine is very versatile and will be fun in any baker's kitchen.

I know there are a lot of critics around that trash the very idea of bread machines but if you can get over that, and you really want to make your own bread, this machine is GREAT. It really could not be easier to have fresh bread at home now. Put things in bucket, put bucket in machine, press buttons, BOOM. It's magical. There's bread. The breadmaker is simple to use and doesn't require much to get it to work. There are three basic options you select- type of bread (there are 12 options), size, and desired crust color (light, medium, dark). It's preset to basic white bread, 2 pound, medium crust. The loaf itself has a strange shape that takes a ittle getting used to. It's almost square. I thought that this was a horizontal pan but it's not exactly, although it's definitely not a vertical style that looks like a tube. The slices come out a little too large for a kids sandwich but my family usually devours the entire lof before we get around to putting anything on it. I have only two minor "complaints" about this thing, and they're sort of petty. First, the beeping is very loud. I can hear it from the basement. For the "add in" and "remove paddle" beeps this is very annoying, but it's okay for the "get this loaf outta here" beeping. It is not ear piercing, it's ear shredding. Don't stand beside it. The second gripe is getting the paddle out. I've had notoriously bad luck kneading bread so I haven't wanted to remove the paddle before baking. I just leave it. When the bread is done and I try to get it out of the pan to cool it takes quite a bit of coaxing to get it to drop out. When it does, the paddle stays in the pan but the bottom of the loaf loses a chunk of bread. It's a detail, and once I'm feeling a little braver I'll remove it when those six loud-asterisk beeps tell me to. Other things to consider are the size of the machine, overall. I'm on the petite size and have difficulty peering through the little window on top when this sits on a standard size counter. This isn't unusual, I've seen other machines and they're all sort of big. I like how simple this looks- even though it takes up a little real estate in the kitchen it isn't fussy or ugly. Helps keep things looking a little less cluttered and simple. It's well built overall, not too heavy, and I have no problems moving it around or lifting it. Operations aren't silent but it has enough weight to it that it doesn't vibrate on the counters. So far, nothing has changed and I've used this at least once a day since we got it. Be sure to use quality, fresh ingredients. The first thing to start with is unbleached bread flour (the bleached stuff is gross, pay the extra five cents for unbleached) and unexpired yeast. The Cuisinart website has a reader-contributed recipe section that has been great for getting some new recipes. All the recipes included in the book it comes with have been very good and we will certainly continue to use them. The Rustic Italian is probably our favorite so far. I don't know that I would ever make jam in this but it's fun to have that option. Overall I love this thing. I'm glad I held out for the better quality and reputation of Cuisinart without going too crazy. If you're like me and love homemade bread but can't really bake it (I'm a good cook and baker, I have no idea why my breadmaking skills are so poor) then get this stainless steel beast of breadmakers. It makes a great gift and eventually it will pay for itself in the savings over bakery or store breads. Plus, the taste of fresh bread just can't be beat.

I got the bread maker yesterday and immediately made pizza dough using the recipe that came with the machine and I have to admit it was by far the best homemade pizza we have ever had. After that I made a two pound loaf of white bread once again following exactly the recipe that came with it and the bread was excellent but ended up rising up over the top of the pan making it difficult to remove the pan when baking was complete. The machine is a bit noisy so if your bedroom is near your kitchen and you're a light sleeper having the timer set to make bread while you sleep might actually be a better alarm clock than bread maker. All in all we are very pleased with this appliance and we will update later if anything comes up. UPDATE: We have had the machine now for two weeks and I wanted to give you my thoughts. Pros: I have read reviews on other bread makers where people say they are light and move around or "walk" during the kneading process. As near as I can tell this machine has not moved at all, even when making two pound loaves. The nonstick pan works very well. I have had zero problems getting the bread to release after baking. One tap like getting ketchup out of a bottle and out it comes. The menu is easy to understand and even somebody with zero experience can make delicious bread out of the gate. Within 24 hours of receiving this machine I had made a loaf of white bread, a loaf of cinnamon swirl bread, and some of the best pizza dough I have ever made in my life. I read some other reviews that said cleaning the inside of the maker was a little difficult but I have had zero problem with that as well. A damp paper towel run around the inside of the machine cleans it in a matter of seconds. The main reason I wanted to get a bread maker in the first place was because when I was growing up my mother would always bake bread on Sunday morning and I can remember how good it smelled when I would wake up and smell the fresh baked bread along with bacon frying, coffee brewing, and hearing the classical music my mother would always have playing on Sunday morning. This machine restored those memories because the smell of baking bread in this machine is absolute heaven. THE CONS: The baking pan is very light weight and feels like it would bend easily so be careful not to drop it. The menu display is not lit so it can be difficult to read. I have used the light on my cell phone several times to see it when making bread after dark. I noticed the shaft for the kneading paddle has some play in it out of the box. It hasn't been a problem yet but I will be watching it closely and update if it gets worse. I have three times now made a two pound loaf and all three times the dough has risen over the top of the pan. It did not fall down into the machine but the crown was large enough once that I had to use my bread knife to cut part of it away so I could remove the baking pan. I am not sure why it is doing it but moving forward I am going to try using a little less yeast than called for in the recipes to see if I can alleviate that problem. A FINAL THOUGHT: I am a 60 year old male who had never baked a loaf of bread in my life. Two weeks after getting this machine I have in my kitchen as I write this review, a loaf of white bread, a loaf of banana nut bread, and some of the best home made leftover pizza that I have ever eaten in my refrigerator. I think that pretty much sums it up. UPDATE: I was concerned that the shaft the paddle connects to being a little loose might be an issue but it has not yet been a problem and I have baked about 20 loaves of bread so far. The one problem that really gave me issues was with the measurements in the recipe book that came with it. When following them exactly my dough was wet and sticky and would rise over the pan on a 2 lb loaf. I purchased a kitchen scale and have discovered for my location a cup of bread flour in their recipes equals 150 grams. I used the bread machine yeast and had to cut the measurement in half. Since making these changes my bread is heavenly. I have to make a loaf every other day just to keep up with demand but that is fine with me. I hope you have the same results with yours. Happy eating!

Because I love my breadmaker! Whenever I purchase a larger item I always spend a lot of time reading reviews, and this purchase was no different. After some extensive research, I decided that I wanted a machine with some specific features: french bread setting, gluten free setting (really just to try it out, I don't have a gluten problem), large loaf size, option to remove paddle before baking, and a JAM setting! I also didn't want to spend a ton of money- I'm a college student with fairly limited income. By the time I was done reading reviews, it was between this machine and the insanely popular Panasonic one, which doesn't have a jam setting but has something like 1500 really good reviews. I went with my jam-loving gut and got the Cuisinart, and am really happy that I did. I've used it at least three times a week since I bought it about a month and a half ago, and it works great. I've made pizza dough, white and wheat breads, some really tasty herbed and french breads, a few varieties of rye bread (they tend to collapse during baking, I still haven't figured that one out), and yes, jam!!! Strawberry cranberry with zinfandel, to be exact. It is as awesome as it sounds! I don't really celebrate Christmas but there's always some obligatory gift-giving, and apparently homemade jam is a great way to show someone you care without spending hours in Black Friday lines or getting tazered at Wal-Mart! I do attribute some of my baking success to reading a lot of online advice about bread making. I learned how to tell if my dough needs more water or flour, what type of flour works best in what type of bread, how to tell if yeast is still good, etc. Sometimes even the best recipes need a little tweaking, and you can't be afraid to pop the lid open during the knead cycle and get your finger in there! To address some of the negative reviews: yes, the beep is somewhat loud. I live in a smallish two bedroom apartment and can sort of hear the beep from the back room if I'm listening for it (which I do, because the beeps are super useful!). It definitely wouldn't wake me up from sleep or anything, and I don't find it annoying or anything. As far as some of the loaves coming out wrong, I would guess a lot of the problems could be resolved with experimentation with recipes and taking environmental temperature and humidity into account. Also, weighing ingredients rather than going by volume has helped immensely. There's a pretty cool iphone app that easily converts volumes of many popular ingredients to masses. tl;dr - buy this machine, you probably wom't regret it.

This sounded like the perfect bread maker based on the description and the reviews as posted on this site. For the plus side, it was very well packaged, perhaps over-packaged, but it arrived intact. It produced an excellent loaf of bread using the directions in the booklet that came with the machine. I have used bread recipes from other books and the maker worked well with them, too. The first negative was that the kneader attachment stuck so well to the machine that it was extremely difficult to remove the loaf of bread when it was done baking. When I finally was able to shake the bread out of the pan, the kneader remained in the loaf and required a pair of pliers to remove it which left a giant hole int he bottom of my bread. The directions say to remove the ball of dough at a certain point, take out the kneader and replace the dough. This is fine if I am home at the correct time, but I cannot always be right there at the appointed time. My previous machine had a different sort of kneader that easily removed from the finished bread. My second disappointment was the difficulty in reading the display box. I finally had to get a flashlight to shine on the display to see what it said. I wonder why they didn't provide a lighted display? My prior maker cost half as much and the display was lit. I had my previous maker for fifteen years and wanted to try something new. This bread maker works well and is okay but not what I really expected. Sorry Conair Cuisinart but I only consider this an average bread maker.

It's been half a year now since I bought this, and I'm very happy with it: 1. It's boxy as expected from a bread maker, but still looks good on the counter top alongside my other stainless steel appliances (though this isn't stainless steel finish, more like anodized aluminum). 2. It's very user friendly. Just put in the ingredients in the listed order, press the program button and the size/crust options and forget. A few hours later you have the aroma of freshly baked bread in the house. If you follow the instructions, you get professional-looking, -tasting and -sounding bread right at home -cccrack! That sound, the look of steaming bread, and the aroma can't be beat! 3. It can be used for different purposes: other than lots of options to make white, sweet, whole grain bread etc, in several size and crust variations, one can make pizza dough (delicious), pasta dough and jam (I haven't yet tried the latter two). 4. It's a much more efficient way of baking small-scale compared to the kitchen oven. And, as a comparison, the rich, German-style breads I make with this cost between $5-7 a loaf in the good bakeries. Baking a loaf at home costs less than $2. My only complaint is that this Amazon-bought appliance came with a ding (I didn't make a fuss about it), and that I can't keep up with the family's appetite! Removing the paddle half way through the program is too messy, so I just let it bake as is (so it has a hole underneath... not a big deal). Without exaggeration, the anticipation of freshly baked bread for breakfast (if you set with the delay) or dinner has become a wonderful home and family ritual. As a bonus, here is my own recipe for 2 lb bread (you'll love this! Ingredients in this order): 1 1/2 cups water 1 1/4 tsp salt 1/2 tbs black molasses 3 cups unbleached bread flour (I use the King Arthur brand) 1/3 cup vital wheat gluten 1/4 cup wheat bran 1/4 cup rolled wheat 1/4 cup milled flax 1 tbs flax seeds 1 tbs black quinoa seeds 1 tbs sunflower seeds 2 tbs pumpernickel seeds Extra virgin drizzle (about 1/2 tbs) 2 1/4 tsp Bread machine yeast (place in a hollow on top of other ingredients) Set for 2 lbs, dark crust, whole wheat program. Don't bother adding the seeds later, just put it all in. Wait a few hours, get your fresh butter out and indulge! PS. For a picture of the resulting loaf, check my photo associated with the bread maker (mine shows the bread on a brown towel with a pyrex measuring cup in the background). Yes, I'm proud of this beauty! ;-)

I'm raising my review to 5 stars, because while the manual may be lacking, the machine itself is wonderful, once you've figured out its quirks. <3 This is an edit to include the things I have learned: 1. The beeps: The first set of 5 beeps, is supposed to tell you it's time to add your mix-ins, if you have any. However. It doesn't (at least not on my machine) beep just 5 times. It give a series of 5 beeps, with a slight pause between a total of 3 sets of 5 beeps. That's what had me so confused and frustrated in the first place. I kept thinking it was ready for the next step, but it wasn't. 2. The recipes: I can't say anything about that wheat bread recipe as it was so off, BUT, for every other recipe I have used, you need to add 1 Tablespoon of flour for each cup of flour called for. I've done this 4x now, and each loaf has turned out beautifully. 3. Personal preference: I think that the full 2T of yeast (for 1.5 lb loaf) that most recipes have called for, may actually be too much. The bread is still delicious, but you can definitely taste a very yeasty flavor, that can sometimes be a little overpowering. I'm trying a loaf of Italian, using just 1.5t of yeast, and I guess we'll see how it turns out. 4. RE: Bread getting stuck on the paddle, stuck in the machine: I have found that waiting 5 minutes before trying to remove the bread makes it pop out with no trouble at all. Even if the paddle stays stuck, the bread slides off very neatly. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is not a bad machine. It does, however, have a learning curve. Different programs seem to have different amounts of beep sets to tell you what stage you are in, and it's very confusing. The White bread setting has so many sets of beeps!..and yet, the rustic setting has only 2. The whole wheat seems to only have 1. Directions for use need to be made much clearer. Also, the recipes in the book are just BAD. When I say BAD, I mean that they are inaccurate. Every recipe I have used from the book, from basic white bread, Italian bread, and the honey whole wheat, have had very inaccurate flour measurements. The white bread are off by at least a tablespoon, and the honey whole wheat? As directed, it made a batter. If this is supposed to be a batter bread, then the recipe should state that. I had to add almost 1/4 cup more of bread flour, and it's still sticky at the rise stage. I've no idea how this is going to turn out, but I'm getting rather upset about all the flour I'm wasting, with having to experiment, to get proper proportions. This is the last time I'm going to use the included recipes. Now to the reasons I like the machine: The crusts! The crusts on the breads t hat I've been able to get right have been *perfect*. Nice and crispy/chewy, but not abrasive at all. The bread itself is fluffy/chewy, just the way it should be. The failures, however, have been dismal. Please, Cuisinart, fix your manual, and fix your recipes. Adding a light to the view window, and a backlight to the digital display would be a nice touch as well. Having to use a flashlight to see the display is inconvenient.

I purchased this Cuisinart CBK-100 2 LB Bread machine in September 2015 when it was on sale. My family has since enjoyed an average of 2 loaves of bread a week - seriously LOVE my bread maker. My favorite recipe is for a sprouted whole wheat bread that I improvised from a few of the recipes in the included Recipe Booklet (see below if interested). We also frequently enjoy homemade Hawaii bread (found on the internet) and pizza crust (directly from the book). So, fast forward to February 2017 and my bread pan is starting to become scored in a circle in the bottom from the little paddle. Not good to eat non-stick coating, even in the smallest portions. But I'm addicted to homemade bread, so a few more loaves and I'll call customer service next Monday... AND today we have oil (or what I assume is oil) leaking in the pan and on the bottom of the bread (black substance, I assume it's oil). No, we will not eat this bread. Probably. Is it toxic? Maybe I can just cut that part off.... Anyways, I called Cuisinart today, on a Sunday afternoon, they are THERE, I explain the problem, they confirm my address (yes, I registered my machine when I bought it) and they are sending me a NEW UNIT. Not just a new pan, but a whole new machine. They just want me to cut the cord off and mail it back with some information, which I can totally do. Conclusion: I love bread. This machine makes great bread (if you put great materials into it). Cuisinart has excellent customer service and has my full endorsement as a company. If I ever need to buy another machine (likely will have to at some point since I use it so much), I will likely buy from them again. Customer service impressed me so much that I was inspired to come on Amazon to tell everyone about it. Does that make me compensated? They didn't ask me to write a review. My Sprouted Whole Wheat and Chia Bread: 1 2/3 cup room temperature water (I use bottled spring water) 2 TBSP olive oil (or you can use unsalted butter - both taste good) 1 1/4 tsp Himalayan sea salt 2 TBSP raw local honey (up to 4 TBSP) 4 cups organic sprouted whole wheat flour (One Degree) 1/3 cup vital wheat gluten (Bob's Redmill) 2 1/4 tsp bread machine yeast 3-4 tsp chia seeds I like to use the Dough Cycle (1.5 hours), remove the paddle at the signal, then either bake 2 smaller loaves in the oven or make a big loaf in the Bake Only Cycle (1 hour). This bread is soft and has a nice texture. Happy Baking!

I just did my first loaf (a gluten-free recipe from the book) and it turned out fantastic! Unfortunately there was a surprising lack of packaging during delivery. Recently I bought a bottle of nail polish from Amazon and the product box was maybe 1x1x3" and it came in a delivery box that was approximately 10x 20x4" and stuffed with brown paper 😱 That was shocking over-packaging, but the bread machine arrived only in the box that it would be in if you bought it from a store shelf. Thankfully, it looks like everything is in working order. It's a nice looking item, not too bulky and doesn't weigh too much. If there's a way to do it, I might suggest a new user may want to put it through a heat cycle while not baking anything, to burn off that "new machine" smell. The smell was not especially nice, but did not affect the flavour of the bread. I did the caraway rye recipe from the booklet. I was familiar by name with some of the more unusual ingredients, but I'm not sure if even a big grocery store would carry all of them. I went to one health food store that I frequent , but being a smaller store in the chain didn't carry everything… I had to go to one of their bigger stores to get all the ingredients. Customers in a more remote area might have to do it through mail order from a larger store chain or Amazon. This is my first experience with a bread machine – prior to getting ready to do the baking, in my mind I was still thinking old-school, having to dig out my bowls and make a big dusty mess! LOL It's wonderful to just be able to pop everything in the bake pan and let the machine do the rest. No mixing, no kneading – heaven! I noticed the loaf rising nicely, and at one point I closed the microwave on the other side of my kitchen and I don't know if it's my imagination that the sound made the loaf sink a bit…or if it is supposed to do that. I've never even made gluten-free bread in an oven so this is all new to me. When the process was over and I turned out the loaf, I couldn't believe how nicely it turned out! When I did a taste test later, it was really nice! I look forward to trying the other recipes in this booklet, as well as other recipes from Gluten free bread machine books. I did a very rough estimate on the cost to make a loaf, and I would say it's maybe half the cost. Maybe a bit less, maybe a bit more, I wasn't terribly scientific in calculating. One downside to the recipes is that the nutritional information shows that everything is way higher than loaf I would normally get in the store. However, it's fresh and you know what's in it... It's also a more solid loaf than one would find in the stores, so not full of *air*. I weighed this one at 700 g. (almost 2 lb) It's not a fault of the machine, but the recipes in the booklet, so it might be advisable to find recipes elsewhere: I've added a photo: one slice is approximately 4 in x 5 in, so roughly the same size as a store loaf, however the nutritional values like calories, sodium, carbohydrates, are about three times (!) what a store slice would be. One third of the slice is awfully tiny, and obviously not big enough to make a sandwich with. Again though, it's very dense and very filling so perhaps one just has to train oneself to use smaller than industry-standardized slices. If the photos turned out in the correct order, you see the process from beginning to end. (I've added one more to show the small size you would need to make a slice in order to make the equivalent nutritional values of a store-bought slice).The dough after mixing; the dough rising; the dough when I worried if it sank; the beautiful finished product!

The perfect bread machine. We are producing delicious loaves of bread without any work! The machine is very easy to use, there are a lot of recipes to explore and the smell of fresh baked bread fills the house. I love fresh bread toasted with butter and jam. This is more expensive than other units but is well worth it. Special note: If you live in an area where the power goes off you will appreciate that the machine remembers where it is in the cycle and simply continues.

Una máquina panificadora fantástica, tiene todas las funciones básicas y algunas avanzadas, el aspa tiene un ángulo que le permite incorporar muy bien los ingredientes, además de que avisa cuando es momento de retirarla para que puedas darle forma a la hogaza o solamente quitar el aspa para evitar tener un hueco en la parte de abajo del pan. También avisa antes de iniciar la última vez que mezcla para que puedas incorporar nueces o pasas a tu masa. La usé también para amasar pan de masa madre, luego terminé de amasar en la mesa de la cocina y en una ocasión la usé para hornear esa misma masa con un muy buen resultado (pero no le gana a un horno holandés de hierro fundido). Anteriormente tuve otra máquina que no pudo dar batalla, pero esta no ha fallado hasta ahora (casi seis meses después) y aunque parece muy voluminosa no ocupa más espacio que un horno tostador pequeño y se ve muy bien.

We are very happy with this bread maker. We have made 6 loaves of bread and pizza dough thus far. I realize it is early to review the product at this point, but I have registered the product with Cuisinart to ensure we have some coverage if there are any failures over time. The recipes that come with the bread make are excellent and delicious. The programmable features are fairly simple to follow. I would definitely recommend this product.

Muy sencilla de usar, aún si tener grandes conocimientos sobre el pan, cualquiera puede hornear un exquisito pan siguiendo los pasos.