Panasonic SD-YD250 Bread Maker Review

The Panasonic SD-YD250 bread maker was a recent acquisition of mine and had been sitting in the shelf for some time as I rarely had the chance to use. But, on Sunday morning, the perfect chance came.

It's a tall machine with a relatively small footprint of 13.5 by 9 inches and looks good on the kitchen counter. I had somewhat high expectations of this appliance due to my past experiences in using other automatic bread machines. It is one of the larger models with a 2.5 lb capacity. I paid around $130 for it, which was a massive saving from the original listed price of $300.

The more salient features of the appliance are:

basic/rapid bake
bake without dough knead
crust color light/medium/dark
sandwich (soft crust)
raisin (pause and beep to add fruit or nuts)
white/whole wheat/multi grain
dough knead without bake
immediate start/timer delay
3 different loaf sizes - small, medium large

My first encounter with this somewhat basic model has mixed feelings. I had opted for the basic white soft crust setting as a starter. First of all, with the 3 loaf sizes and the awkward measurements in the recipes such as 16 3/4 oz were quite confusing; I had to make a call to the Customer Support for clarification before I could proceed. If you have kitchen scales, they will definitely come in handy now!

Once I started baking, I could smell the aroma of freshly baked bread, something I've loved since childhood. It is considerably quiet even though I can still hear the occasional stirring and whirring as the dough is mixed and kneaded. The end result was quite satisfying with the bread better than what I had originally had comet to expect, but over the course of the next few encounters, I learned some important lessons.

I realized that not all settings can be combined as I would have liked. For instance, the sandwich mode can only be used with white and whole wheat, crust selection for white bread only and multi-grain bread always have a tough, dark crust. Also, I learned to always use fresh bread flour and yeast with the correct amount of salt, sugar and flour. There is no viewing window and the control panel isn't very helpful with no indication of the baking process for more seasoned bakers.

Overall, this automatic bread maker is still one of the better models of its kind on the market. It's very good value for money and after going through the initial hiccups, I am on my way to a greater baking experience with the Panasonic SD-YD250 bread machine.

Follow the links for the Panasonic SD-YD250 bread maker and bread machine reviews on leading models like the Oster, Zojirushi and zojirushi bread machine.