Morphy Richards 48323 Breadmaker

I've had my breadmachine for years & it's excellent. The only minor problem is that the breadpan needs to be replaced every couple of years, owing to my heavy use of it. But Morphy Richards have all the spare parts in stock, ship them out quickly, & don't rip you off. This company is a model in my view. Well done!

Morphy Richards Breadmaker 48323

My old Prima Home Bakery bread machine finally died just before easter, but it was 10yrs old bless it.

So I checked all reviews on the Morphy Richards 48323 before getting it from Argos.

Came home, unpacked it, and read the instruction manual which advised switching it on for 10 mins to burn off any residue from production dusts.

Took an hour to set the clock to 10 mins then it wouldn't heat up.

Another hour to finally get it reset back to factory default program 1, and carefully measured ingredients from the Basic Bread recipe into the tin, which I'd removed from the machine to do so.

Measuring the flour was a nightmare. With my Prima I just weighed 460g and threw it in, with the Morphy Richards I had to dip the oval shaped 'cup' into the bag of flour and then scrape level. It took 4 of these for the large size loaf. Infact for the amount of ingredients it uses, I could have baked 3 loaves of the same size in my Prima.

Finally after dusting the whole kitchen and myself with flour, I closed the lid and pressed the loaf size button and the crust colour button. Nothing happened, so not wanting to waste another hour fathoming out why it wasn't working I pressed the start button.

The cat flew out of the window with the racket it made. I was beginning to wish I'd followed her.

The machine didn't mix the ingredients very well and when I peered into the tiny observation window after pressing the 'light-programme' button hesitantly, as I didn't want to change the programme I just wanted to see what was going on inside, I saw clumps of ingredients being tossed around willy nilly and nothing actually sticking together.

Dismayed I left it to it, thinking to myself 'oh well it's newer and modern so maybe it works different to my Prima.'

WRONG!!! It just doesn't work properly.

After 3 hours I checked the screen to see if the time was up, by the way the screen is always dark and you have to press the light button to read it.

Yes the 3 hrs were up!

In anticipation and some trepidation, oven gloves at the ready I lifted the lid.

Well if anyone had a camera, I could have been on 'you've been framed' next week, because my face must have been a picture. The cat who was peering nervously through the open window wondering if it was safe to come back in as it was now quiet, looked at me, turned around and sped off back down the garden.

The loaf, and I use that expression generously, was like a brown meteor throbbing in the in tin.

I lifted the tin out and after about 10 mins managed to dislodge the brown meteor and discovered the sides and bottom were a nice shade of dark brown, verging on burnt. Well yes ok they were burnt.

It almost bent my wire cooling rack as it landed on it. And sat there looking like a huge erect cow pat. Still no sign of the cat, but the dog was twitching nervously thinking 'oh god am I going to have to eat that?'

When it finally cooled, I got the bread knife out and attempted to cut it, the knife bowed so I decided to use (risk) using the electric carving knife.

This did manage to cut it eventually, although I had started to wish I'd still kept the chain saw after my husband passed away.

After hacking off a crust, and one slice, I buttered the slice to taste it. It tasted vile. It went in the bin!!!!

The machine was repacked in its box, no mean feat either, because it's such an odd shape it takes a while to suss out which way round the 2 polystyrene end pieces fit on.

Back it went to Argos! I'd taken out a 3yr extended warranty on it, which I needn't have, because it comes with a 2yr warranty, so thats another thing, I paid Argos for 3yrs and got one. I pointed this out to the assistant who said not to worry (they don't give a toss anyway do they?) and I exchanged it for the same bread machine my brother uses, which is a Panasonic.

At last I'm eating normal tasting bread again, and the cat (and dog) are so relieved they're both asleep in the dog basket as I type this.

So in brief my review is:

Minus:

Too expensive, should have been £150 but was half price in Argos (now we know why).

Ugly

Doesnt bake bread properly (well doesn't bake bread at all really)

Huge in size

Uses too much ingredients so doesnt cost any less than going down the shop and buying a loaf, which is probably more healthy in this case.

Plus:

Would make a good land mine or save that parking space outside your house for you.

This breadmaker is absolutely foolproof. It was a toss up between Morphy Richards or Panasonic but in the end I opted for the Morphy Richards 48323. Have made the wholemeal 2lb loaf with slight adjustments to the sugar content and leaving out the vit C as I already take this in supplement form. I also used butter instead of oil. Result - a perfect loaf. To lighten it a tad I used 2 cups of stoneground organic wholemeal and 2 cups of stoneground organic white - again an absolutely perfect loaf. Have done a costing and this full 2lb loaf of absolutely delicious and completely additive free bread cost me apx £1.20 Inc electricity. Using cheaper flours would reduce this considerably, but I wanted to stay on the organic route. Since eating only my own homemade bread I have found that my gastric problems have reduced considerably. Assembling the ingredients takes a couple of minutes - the machine does all the rest. Wonderful piece of equipment.