Update: This deal is still available.
CrateandBarrel.com has
Cuisinart CBK-200 Convection Bread Maker on sale for
$99.95.
Shipping is free.
Thanks to Deal Hunter
daisybeetle for finding this deal.
- Note: Availability for store pickup is limited and will vary by location.
Features:
- 16 preprogrammed menu options, 3 crust colors, and 3 loaf sizes offer over 100 bread, dough/pizza dough, sweet cake and jam choices.
- Low Carb and Gluten-Free preset menu options and recipes. A Cuisinart exclusive!
- Special menu option takes basic dough through several long, slow cool rises for chewier textures and rustic crusts.
- Unique convection feature circulates air for superior crust color, and texture. BPA Free
- Audible tone indicates time to add fruit, nuts and other "mix-ins." Second tone offers option of removing paddle before baking, or removing unbaked dough to shape by hand.
- Additional Options: 15-minute Pause, Bake-Only option, 12-Hour-Delay Start, Timer and Power Failure Backup
- Limited 3-year warranty, 680 watts
Top Comments
But as a simple example, a 2lb loaf of bread generally uses about 4 cups of flour. You can buy a 5lb bag (20 cups) of bread flour for $4. For a basic white bread the only other things you are likely adding is a small amount of sugar, salt, butter/oil, milk, and yeast. The cost for those other ingredients is going to be a few pennies at most since you use so little of them. So at 80 cents of flour and a few pennies of everything else you are looking at about $1 per loaf. And that's assuming you aren't buying any ingredients in bulk, which you should because it could cut costs by more than half.
So if you go through a loaf of bread per week at $3/loaf at the supermarket that is $156/year on bread. Making it at home with a machine, not accounting for buying ingredients on sale or in bulk and assuming $1/loaf you are at $52/year. So a savings year over year of $104 if you buy this machine, giving you a 1 year ROI.
Again though this is overly simplistic, because a homemade loaf like this doesn't really cost $3. It is more akin to a loaf you'd buy at a local bakery. Those usually run $5-10 depending on what they are and where you are. So in that case your ROI is quite a bit faster.
It's definitely not free to keep adding things onto your weekly trip. Your bags keep getting larger and heavier and the trips keep taking longer.
It's one thing to buy half a year's supply of flour every six months (or have it delivered). It's quite another to buy fresh bread every single week.
I understand the people who live in a nice European town and they find it a pleasure to drop by the market every day for fresh ingredients to prepare that same day. If they enjoy that lifestyle, that sounds wonderful and I would love to live in such a society (of course, when your movement is restricted by state regulations that throws a bit of a wrench in that lifestyle, but I digress).
Unfortunately I live in an American car-dependent hell-scape where the market centers are vivisected by polluted, dangerous "stroads" (multiple-lane roads that serve both as high-traffic commuter traffic arterials and road-side commercial shopping property), that you can only travel on safely in a steel roll-cage-protected metal box called a car. Visiting the supermarket involves driving on a congested highway, and then waiting for tens of minutes in a checkout line surrounded by other deeply stressed-out and angry, distrustful people (quick aside: in Europe they introduced walk-in-walk-out and scan with phone years ago, but abandoned that tech in US because of "shrinkage", i.e. shoplifters).
The fewer trips I have to make to the market, the better. And the fewer things I have to buy when I'm there, the more pleasant the experience is, and the more likely I can do that shopping at some other smaller, more pleasant market.
At this point, by buying staples and learning to cook my own quickly and efficiently instead of buying it prepared, I've eliminated having to take weekly trips to the grocery. I buy a few fresh ingredients once in a while only from the smaller markets I enjoy visiting, and make the rest from staples in my pantry that I only have to occasionally replenish, and which I can usually get delivered cheaply.
I'm not saying everyone needs to live exactly like me, but if you are finding that you don't have enough time in the week and you're stressed out and not living the life you'd like to, I would highly recommend seeing if you can reclaim time that you use visiting the grocery every week. Visits to a supermarket can be some of the most tedious, time-wasting, cortisol-increasing hours of your life, and they can be almost entirely eliminated by eliminating prepared foods like baked bread from your shopping.
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Oh, one more thing. You can also use this as a standard recipe for dough as well. Just put it on the dough setting and then shape it into rolls or pizza dough or bake it in a pan for a nice loaf of bread. It's not just the easiest and most forgiving dough you'll find. It's also the tastiest.
If you're going to finish it off as a loaf of bread, I recommend (and I'm talking about pre-measured portions for a 2lb loaf, which for me is 4 cups of flour) pressing down the dough, then tucking it in so it's nice and tight on the other side. Score it and put in a greased pan. Let it rise.
Put it in a 450°F oven that also has a small pan of boiling water in it for steam. Ideally, you'd also have a hot pizza stone to put it on too. I mean while it's still in the pan. Bake for 8 minutes at that temp. Reduce the temp to 350°F and bake 30 minutes more. Take the boiling water out for the last ten minutes so the oven dries up.
Take the loaves out of the pan and let them sit on a cooling rack for 30 minutes before eating. This rule applies to bread-maker bread too. DO NOT LET THEM COOL IN THE PAN.
Congratulations, you are now the bread king.
But as a simple example, a 2lb loaf of bread generally uses about 4 cups of flour. You can buy a 5lb bag (20 cups) of bread flour for $4. For a basic white bread the only other things you are likely adding is a small amount of sugar, salt, butter/oil, milk, and yeast. The cost for those other ingredients is going to be a few pennies at most since you use so little of them. So at 80 cents of flour and a few pennies of everything else you are looking at about $1 per loaf. And that's assuming you aren't buying any ingredients in bulk, which you should because it could cut costs by more than half.
So if you go through a loaf of bread per week at $3/loaf at the supermarket that is $156/year on bread. Making it at home with a machine, not accounting for buying ingredients on sale or in bulk and assuming $1/loaf you are at $52/year. So a savings year over year of $104 if you buy this machine, giving you a 1 year ROI.
Again though this is overly simplistic, because a homemade loaf like this doesn't really cost $3. It is more akin to a loaf you'd buy at a local bakery. Those usually run $5-10 depending on what they are and where you are. So in that case your ROI is quite a bit faster.
And if you are producing lots of bread, you can buy a 50# bag of flour for $15 like sperry hi-gluten or king arthur.
I wouldn't look at this as a money saving device so much as a cheap way to knead dough that won't bust compared to a $100 stand mixer. Even then the kneading these things do takes quite a long time but could be useful if you have arthritis.
This is the one I got, and I'm very happy with it after having experimented with a few different loaves: KBS 17-in-1 Bread Maker with Dual Heaters https://smile.amazon.co
It had fewer reviews than the older model (KBS Large 17-in-1 Bread Machine https://smile.amazon.co
I also found a couple of other non-teflon nonstick bread machines. Though I obviously decided not to get them, perhaps the info will be helpful for someone else:
Secura Bread Maker
https://smile.amazon.co
Yedi Total Package 19-in-1 Bread Maker
https://smile.amazon.co