Breadman Tr520 Programmable Bread Maker For 1 1 1 2 And 2 Pound Loaves - Review

Breadman TR520 Programmable Bread Maker for 1-, 1-1/2-, and 2-Pound Loaves - I Pick This One

Enjoy the delicious aroma of freshly baked bread with this easy-to-use breadmaker. The machine bakes 1-, 1-1/2-, and 2-pound loaves in less than an hour and can handle any favorite recipe--from cinnamon raisin, honey wheat, rosemary, and cranberry oat to hearty rye, cheesy onion focaccia, and classic French bread, even cinnamon rolls for breakfast or dinner rolls for the evening meal. The machine features a user-friendly push-button control panel with a digital display for simple programming. Choose from three crust shades--light, medium, or dark, and from eight different functions for making a wide range of breads and doughs. The unit also provides a delay timer that can be set up to 13 hours--great for waking up to or coming home to a warm loaf ready to be sliced and lathered with butter. Other thoughtful design details include a fruit-and-nut add-in signal bell, a viewing window, a removable lid, and a nonstick baking pan for quick cleanup. The breadmaker measures approximately 13-1/2 by 12-1/5 by 13-1/2 inches and carries a one-year limited warranty.

A paddle comes attached to electrical cord. Detach but keep safe for use with select bread types.

Reviews of Breadman Tr520 Programmable Bread Maker For 1 1 1 2 And 2 Pound Loaves

Excellent buy for a very good machine - 4 and a half stars
Rating by : AmeliaAT "Apostrophistica",

I bought this to replace a more sophisticated programmable Breadman Ultimate that I had used once or twice a week, sometimes more frequently, for several years. The machine still worked, but the kneading assembly finally just fell out of the bread pan (the shaft, etc.), and there were no replacement bread pans available for that machine. (I looked high and low!)

I looked at a number of different machines before choosing this one. It seemed that people who bought Breadman machines were satisfied with this one, but the successor machine to the Ultimate received disappointed reviews from people who had owned the Ultimate. I also looked at other brands, and for one reason or another, rejected them. One of them, when you look at the manual, you discover that the ONLY setting for one pound and one and a half pound loaves is the "fast" setting, and the other settings are available only for the two lb loaves. Since I almost always bake one and a half pound loaves, this surprised me. (I find that the "fast" setting is hardly adequate even for a plain white loaf, but forget it for anything involving multiple whole grains.)

The Breadman TR520 isn't programmable the way that the Ultimate was, but I had only used that feature rarely, so it was something I was willing to forego. It has a plain dough setting, but no pizza dough setting, which my previous machine had. Pizza dough does not require the time and rises that a bread dough would, but that's easily worked around -- I set my kitchen timer for an hour and take the pizza dough out after an hour and it's perfect. (I use my own traditional recipe for pizza dough, not the one in the manual that comes with the machine, which calls for sugar and dry milk, which I found bizarre.)

Some of the differences between the TR520 and the Ultimate:
- the TR520 cannot be custom programmed, although it does have the "delay" feature so that you can set the machine up the night before (or in the morning before work) and set the bread to be baked up to 13 hours after you put the ingredients in the machine.
- the TR520 is MUCH quieter than the Ultimate.
- the TR520 does not have as many settings as the Ultimate (such as "pizza dough"), but it still allows you to "mix and match" your loaf size, crust setting, and loaf type (e.g., basic white, whole wheat, French, etc.), and it does have the "plain dough" and "bake only" settings.
- The display does not tell you what stage of bread-making the machine is on, only the time remaining. With the Ultimate, it was nice to glance at it and see that it was on its second rise, or whatever.
- The key to the programs and the labels for the buttons, as noted by other reviewers, is printed on the machine in white with a yellow background and is very difficult to read, though I didn't find it impossible (really a stupid design mistake). You can always refer to the manual until you memorize them.
- The casing seems to get hotter than the casing for the Ultimate used to, but that may be a subjective impression that is actually incorrect.
- It has a slightly smaller footprint than the Ultimate, and is more of a square machine than rectangular, although the loaves are the usual rectangular loaf-shape.
- Rather than having a receptacle for extras (raisins, nuts, etc.) like the Ultimate had, the TR520 has a loud beep, instead, signalling you to add the extras.
- The Ultimate had a pause button, and the TR520 does not. I would like to be able to pause the machine early on and use my spatula to push dough from the corners if necessary, and pause it when adding the extras.
- Neither the Ultimate nor the TR520 have two paddles, but they handle stiff bialy dough very well with just the one, and they don't make two holes in the bottom of the bread.

I have baked several different loaves in the machine so far, including a buttermilk white loaf, a whole wheat oatmeal loaf, a whole wheat potato bread, cinnamon raisin bread, and a multigrain loaf, and they all came out well, just as I'd expected them to. My pizza dough has turned out beautifully each time I make it, too, and I do that about once a week. I have also made hard roll dough and bialy dough in the machine. It handled the very stiff bialy dough beautifully (bialy dough is like bagel dough), which pleased me.

I have never made quick breads and cakes in my bread machine, this one or its predecessor, since I found early on that they don't turn out well for my taste. It's also scarcely any harder to mix something like that in a bowl and put it in the oven to bake, provided you have an oven!

One of the things I love about the bread machine, aside from its general ease of use, is that I can bake bread in even the hottest weather without heating up my kitchen with the oven.

The manual that comes with the machine is good and quite thorough. It pays to read it -- it is important with this machine, as with the Ultimate, to keep it unplugged in between uses, for example, and not to soak or immerse the bread pan. The recipes, however, are not any I would use as written, although I may try the pita bread recipe and tweak it a bit. I have been baking bread for about thirty years, more if you include when I would help my mother when I was growing up, and I have never, either in old-fashioned manual bread-making or in machine bread-making, used TWO TABLESPOONS of sugar for one ordinary loaf of bread. The sugar is there to feed the yeast, not to flavor the bread (unless it's a sweet bread, such as cinnamon raisin, Portuguese sweet bread, or challah). Two TEASPOONS per loaf has always been sufficient, regardless of the bread/flour type. My loaves turn out beautifully risen and golden with a lovely texture and crumb. Some breads, such as traditional white Italian and French loaves and pizza dough, do not need sugar at all.

It was a a great price for a very good, perfectly functional machine. It had the features I found essential in a bread machine, though it didn't have some of the extras that would be nice. The only flaws that were real design flaws, as opposed to just being not-ideal, are the lack of a "pause" button, and the strange choice of white writing on yellow on the breadmaker lid. But the white-on-yellow is more-or-less a cosmetic flaw that can be compensated for. I do miss the pause button, though.

It's not perfect and it lacks some frills, but it's an excellent buy, and I'd recommend it to anyone looking to buy a basic bread machine.

Good Machine
Rating by : A. Terry,

For the price, it's a pretty good bread machine. One thing I would add is this... If you are not using the brand of yeast recommended by Breadman, your results may not be good. Their recipes were tested using Red Star Yeast Active Dry Yeast. Not all yeasts will yield the same result. Know how the yeast you're using will perform.

I use an organic yeast, and when I used the amount recommended in the first white bread recipe, (1 Tbsp for a 2 lb loaf), the bread rose and fell. The taste was okay, but I knew when the loaf didn't dome, that the problem was too much yeast.

I used (1 3/4 tsp of organic yeast for a 1 1/2 lb loaf) for whole wheat bread, and it came out absolutely perfect. The bread was just as good as the whole wheat bread I used to purchase at the grocery store for $3.50 a loaf. Now that I know that I have to adjust the amount of yeast since I'm not using the one tested for their recipes, I am very happy with my machine. I would not use a bread machine for quick breads because I prefer to do them by hand. I will only use my machine for yeast breads.

I have experience using bread machines and I know how my yeast performs thru trial and error. A novice would not have known that there are differences in brands of Active Dry Yeast. Also, through experience, I know that the relative humidity will affect the outcome of your bread. Check your bread while it's kneading on a humid day to see if a little flour needs to be added, only adding a Tbsp at a time.

good deal - we're happy with it
Rating by : moss dog,

We bake a loaf about every 5 days, usually basic white or honey wheat. We've also made herb breads, seed breads and pizza dough. This is our first and only bread machine so we've nothing to compare it to, but seems great to us. The loaves are beautiful and almost always perfect - we've only had one loaf that didn't turn out (don't know why). There's a timer that lets us set it up the night before and wake to the smell of fresh bread baking... mmmm...... The paddle does tend to take a largish chunk of bread with it when the loaf comes out of the pan. The writing is hard to read as others have said, but we use the default setting 95% of the time so we don't have to read anything - just hit start. For an inexpensive breadmaker, it's really great. We've had ours 7 months.

Paddle comes attached to electrical cord; detach but keep safe for use with select bread types; Programmable breadmaker bakes 1-, 1-1/2-, and 2-pound loaves

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Enjoy the delicious aroma of freshly baked bread with this easy-to-use breadmaker. The machine bakes 1-, 1-1/2-, and 2-pound loaves in less than an hour and can ...

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