Emeril Bread Maker Review

Emeril Lagasse is a man best know for his work on tv as a celebrity chef, restauranteur and cookbook author. However he has also lent his name to several cookware products, including bread machines. These cookware products have primarily been done via collaborations with the big name brand T-Fal. The Emeril Bread And Baguette maker is one such example of this partnership between the two, and this is what we are going to be looking at in this article. Does it live up to the hype? Lets take a look at the machine to find out.

Product Features:
The Emeril OW5005001 bread machine is quite unique in a few ways, but let’s start off by taking a look at the design. The overall look they have gone for is a glossy white color for the bulk of the unit, while the lid area is a glossy grey. This machine was released around mid 2008, so the design still looks quite relevant today. There are large vents on the side of the unit, and the top features a decent sized viewing window to help you keep an eye on the progress. The Emeril logo is featured on the front and top of the machine, but it isn’t too large or obnoxious.

Since this machine creates a variety of larger loaves and baguettes (more on that below), the dimensions are somewhat larger than your average model at 26.5″L x 19″W x 15.5″H. The main control panel on the front has a number of different options to pick from, but all the buttons are well labelled and easy to distinguish. The lcd screen is an average size, although on a bread machine with this many features we would have liked to have seen one a little larger. As mentioned above there quite a few different recipes and settings to pick from, all of which are listed above the lcd screen for easy reference.

The main recipes are as follows: basic white, french, whole wheat, sweet, express, gluten free, salt free, rye, baguette, cake, jam, pasta, dough and warming. There are the three standard crust options to choose from, and there are three loaf sizes to pick from which include 2lbs, 2.5lbs and the large 3lbs. With such large bread loaf sizes, a powerful motor is needed to mix that quantity of dough. This is all done by the large 1650 watt motor, which features twin mixing blades. Twin mixing blades in our experience help to make the best mix possible, so we were pleased to see this feature.

Now one of the main advantages of this machine is that thanks to the support for larger loaf sizes, you can actually make conventionally sized loaves instead if the odd shaped vertical bread loaves. Another big advantage to this machine is that you can also make baguettes, which are baked in the included double layer split cooking trays. This is not something we have seen before in competing products, so points go to Emeril and T-Fal for innovating with this product. The loaf pan and baguette tray features the trademark T-Fal coating, which is renowned for being tough yet very slick. Cleaning the machine is done using a soft cloth with soapy water, and putting the baking tin or baguette trays in the dishwasher is not recommended. Like most modern bread machines, the Emeril OW5005001 comes with a delayed start timer, so you can set how many hours in advance you want your bread to be ready.

Included with the Emeril bread maker are several utilities including the measuring beaker, double sided spoon (teaspoon and tablespoon), a brush, the finishing blade, a hook for pulling out the bread paddles if they get stuck, and the instruction book with recipes. Overall it is a very nice bundle, which contains everything you need to start making your own bread aside from the ingredients. The ingredients are added in the tradition way which is liquid ingredients, dry ingredients and then the yeast on top. With specialty breads, the machine will beep when it is time to add the extra ingredients such as nuts or raisins. However one downside to this is the volume is a bit on the low side, so you will need to be quite near to the machine to hear it. This is probably so that you don’t get woken up if the timer is set for an overnight cycle, however an adjustable volume would have been a better option in our opinion.

Another odd design is that the machine doesn’t beep at the end of the dough cycle, which again seems like a odd design choice.
However, it isn’t all bad news, as hundreds of user reports are in agreement that this machine does make fantastic bread. According to many reports the textures and flavors are all very highly rated, and the bread made by this machine is as good as any bread you can buy. From what we have seen there has been virtually nothing but good reports when it came to the cooking results from the machine. Combine that with an easy to clean model and you have a very enticing option for a bread maker.

Now in terms of pricing this machine, we think this model was quite fairly priced around $149.99 when it was first released. These days it is quite hard to find a new one for sale, so Ebay will be your best option. Even though the Emeril Bread maker is a few years old now, it still holds up very well compared to some of the newer models. For that reason it is quite a good choice in our opinion.

Pros:

• Three different loaf sizes
• Many recipes
• Can make baguettes
• Twin paddle design
• Strong motor
• Works very well
• Easy to clean

Cons:

• Beep alert noise is a bit low

Summary:
The Emeril Bread And Baguette maker is still a good choice if you can get hold of one. It has a number of different recipes, is powered by a strong motor, and you can even make baguettes in it. For this reason it is still a decent purchase, and you may have some luck finding one over at Amazon product page as they sometimes pop up for sale there.