A small
appliance, often in the $30-100 range, which resembles a removeable
bread pan with a
heating element underneath and one or more
paddles within.
Water,
flour,
yeast, and other
ingredients are added to this pan, and it then stirs and
kneads them into a
dough. This dough is allowed to
rise for a period of time, then baked into a
loaf of
bread. The entire
process usually takes two to four hours. Most bread machines also include a
timer, which one can set before going to
bed in order to have fresh bread ready for
breakfast the next day.
Though machine-made bread is agreed to be somewhat inferior to hand-made homemade bread, it is much better than the loaves of sandwich bread that can be bought in grocery stores.