Betty Crocker Best Bread Machine Cookbook: The Goodness of Homemade Bread the Easy Way (Betty Crocker Cooking)

This cookbook should be given 10 stars - I purchased it along with my new KBS Bread Machine & it is a beautiful & completely informative cookbook FULL of Betty Crocker TESTED recipes & beautiful photography of the recipes. I could not be without this trusted cookbook now - 100% love it!!!

I received a bread machine for Christmas and decided I needed a cookbook with some easy-to-follow recipes as I learned how to use the machine. This cookbook is PERFECT! It has 100+ different recipes that are easy to follow and even includes additional tips, tricks, and suggestions along the sides of each page/recipe. I’ve made the cinnamon raisin bread (p.38) at least 10 times already and it’s delicious and literally makes my entire house smell amazing. (sidenote- if you make the raisin bread, soak your raisins in a bowl of water for a few minutes to let them soften… it makes the bread even better!). If you have a bread machine, this is a perfect book for beginners (or anyone who loves easy to make, fresh, homemade bread!). I love that the book is hardback and bound via spiral binding so that it’s easy to lay flat and follow while preparing. I included a photo of the book next to a standard roll of paper towels just to provide a representation of its true size. The pictures are a little dated (publication date is 1999, so 20 years old) but the recipes are classic. I’m so happy with this cookbook and am anxious to try more recipes!

This is an EXCELLENT book. Lots of pictures, and very informative. Easy to follow directions, with plenty of varieties of recipes to pick from. I'm real picky about my cookbooks. I want photos, directions, special tips, and hints, and lots of recipes to pick from. This book has it all. I HIGHLY recommend this book.

Although I've been using a bread machine for decades now, long enough to figure out how to create my own recipes, I wanted a selection of recipes that would inspire me to try something new. For the most part, Betty Crocker's Best Bread Machine Cookbook does just that. I would say that about half the recipes don't appeal to me (dilled carrot bread, wild rice and apple bread, and chocolate mint bread, for example), but the fact that half DO appeal to me is great. After all, I often keep cookbooks on my shelf for a measly 3-4 recipes that I love. For successful results, you need to pay attention to the ingredients. Experience will tell you which ones you can adjust, but all breads require flour, salt, leavening/yeast, liquid, and, usually but not always, fat. These proportions cannot change, although the add-ins and type of each of the essential ingredients can. These combinations and add-ins make up the recipes in this book, from pumpernickel bread to roasted red pepper focaccia. Some of the recipe ingredients surprised me, such as using the higher-gluten bread flour for sticky rolls and cinnamon rolls -- usually softer all-purpose is used for those kind of breads. Mostly, though, everything makes sense and therefore produces loaves that you can count on. This cookbook is a little short on basic breads. It has a classic white loaf, but fails to give variations on it for different character. I like that the sidebars give short recipes suggestions, tips, testing notes, and fun facts. For instance, on the white bread page, it tells you how to create a grilled pesto mozzarella sandwich with it. Many of the recipes are for free-form loaves (sundried tomato baguettes, Swedish coffee ring, buttermilk granola bread), which is right in my wheelhouse; however, beginners might prefer to stick with the traditional loaves baked in the bread machine pan. Even if you start this way, consider moving up to the freeform loaves since they are the ones that liberate the bread machine. I've found that the recipes all work well and have been tested, even if I might not like the flavor combinations. I use this cookbook in combination with my dog-eared copy of Bread Machine Magic, the cookbook that remains my favorite on the subject. -- Debbie Lee Wesselmann

This bread book is really done well. The instructions are easy to follow. I have baked three of the recipes in this cookbook so far and find them very good. This last one, the sweet bread wreath was a real hit with my family. I used the dough setting on this one. My daughter said, “ It taste like Christmas Mom.” I have the small Cuisnart bread machine. Totally love it. They give you success tips in the book. The pictures are beautiful. I love how the book is divided by breads, savory, sweet, etc. Also in the back of the book it has the terms in baking as well as, a metric conversion chart. This cookbook came out in 1999, but it works so good with my bread machine.

I'm new to bread making and I am trying all sorts of things as I find my way to the perfect breads for my family. My first instinct for a bread machine cookbook was anything by Betty Crocker and that was a good bet. The opening pages have loads of tips for the beginner - how to help too dry or too wet dough before it bakes, how to know if your yeast is still good, explanations of various features on different bread machines, the differences in the types of flours, and there's a section with photos of baked loaves gone wrong and the possible reasons why. The recipes are widely varied and plentiful, with scrumptious looking color photos throughout. This book has everything from classic white bread to four pepper spicy bread to potato tarragon bread to raisin cinnamon bread and our favorite so far, the beer-bacon bread on page 44. I have tweaked the beer-bacon bread a bit and added 1/2 cup sharp cheddar cheese to it and an extra tablespoon of mustard - awesome bread that was devoured by our guests in literally minutes. I am keeping this book out on the cabinet and not tucked away in the shelf - I need easy access to it.

It’s a good book for beginners who are looking for good recipes to learn and make in their bread machine. However it is not foolproof. Breads that require more elaborate steps are not always explained well and I wonder if these recipes were tested at all. For example, I made the dough for the cheese pizza recipe and it called for light kneading after the machine was done preparing the dough. Well, I did some light kneading and the dough got hard and tough to work with. Also the yeast substitution chart is horrible. I ran out of rapid rise yeast and used regular kind. If you are following any recipes that require handling the dough or baking outside of the machine, the dough comes out with weak structure. It’s almost as if they didn’t take the time to actually try these conversions at all.

After many years (26 in retail) of working full time and two years of rather boring retirement, I dragged out my 13 year old like new breadmaker. My daughter saw it so I offered it to her. Surprisingly, she took it so off I went to buy a new one. New Oster breadmaker sitting ready to be used, I made a few loaves from recipes I found online. Most turned out OK but none were quite as they should be. I had quickly discovered that although making a good loaf of bread was not difficult it DID require a bit of "tweeking" on the bakers end. I bought a highly recommended three inch thick bread machine cookbook that had hundreds of recipes in it. But I had no idea where to begin. Then I saw the Betty Crocker Best Bread Machine Cookbook. In my 65 years, Betty Crocker has never failed me. It stated that each recipe had been tested on many different bread makers which to me said the recipe had already been tweeked. I ordered it without hesitation. Let me start by saying that this cookbook is perfect for a newbie to bread making or someone like myself who gets frustrated by having too many failures. I had found bread making rather theraputic even with my less than perfect loaves but I doubted I would continue my new hobby for long if I failed to make a decent loaf of bread. This cookbook IS foolproof! The catagories it covers are: Good and Savory, Wholesome Grains, Fruit and Nut, Smaller (1 lb) Loaves, Rustic and Flatbread, Rolls and Bread Sticks, Sweet Breads and Coffee Cakes as well as many helpful hints in the front and back of the book. You have separate lists of ingredients for different size loaves (mainly 1 1/2 and 2 lb loaves). If a particular recipe does not work well in a particular shape pan or loaf size, it tells you so thus saving you much trial and error. And from my very first loaf using a recipe for basic white bread, my loaves come out perfect. After my largely decent tasting but strange looking first loaves, it is a joy to end up with a professional looking loaf of homemade bread that tastes good! If you are new to bread making or are buying a bread machine for someone, add a copy of this book to your purchase. This Betty Crocker cookbook has lots of recipes to keep you busy for quite some time. After your bread making success with this book, you may well be inspired to try some of the recipes in the three inch thick cookbook! By the way, I now have TWO bread machines, the second a West Bend that just arrived today (will try it out tomorrow). With Christmas about 2 months away, I will be making bread as gifts (as well as cookies and candies). Once I try the West Bend, I will leave reviews for it and the Oster. It is so hard to decide which machine to buy. So I solved the problem with buying them both!