Zojirushi BB-HAC10 Home Bakery 1-Pound-Loaf Programmable Mini Breadmaker

It does not get easier than this I baked my first loaf (see photo) and it came out perfectly. I made sure to measure the ingredients accurately. For this loaf, I used King Arthur Bread Flour and I purchased a 1 lb bag of Saf Instant Yeast (which refrigerated will last a LONG time). Today I am using King Arthur Stoned Ground White Wheat flour and the aromas coming from the kitchen are wonderful. Make sure to have dry milk on hand …. I thought I would have all the ingredients I needed at hand, but didn’t have dry milk. Very easy clean up and I love the small footprint of this machine. The mini baker produces a 1 lb loaf that is perfect for us empty nester-retirees. I am guessing I will average 2 loaves a week and the machine, while on the high end price wise, will pay for itself in less than a year. Can’t wait to experiment with more ingredients.

I am modifying my previous review:
It has been 10 months that I am using this bread machine and the coating of the pan is coming off (see the photo).
All other functionalities are great but this makes the bread machine useless, because the coating sticks to the bread and I don’t think it is healthy.
It’s a pity that the pan doesn’t have a good quality to last longer.
BTW the buying the pan itself is really expensive.

1- The size: it’s perfect for my small kitchen, It’s not bulky and it can fit in a small corner.
2- The features: I can bake bread and cakes and make jam. This is my perfect home made breakfast
3- The options: I love the crust control and also the fact that I have many different options for breads.
4- The noise: This is so far the most quiet bread maker I had, I wasn’t able to turn on the other bread machines over the night for the amount of the noise they made to mix the ingredients and the loud beeps during the process.

My Zojirushi Mini (BB-HAC10) arrived a few days ago and I’m baking Loaf #4 as I write this. First, the delivery was prompt. I chose Amazon’s free shipping but for some reason, it was sent overnight to me. That was a nice touch. This is my very first bread machine and I bought it because my husband and I (no kids) constantly have bread problems: the commercial loaves are too big for us and we end up throwing out 1/2 the loaf, OR we run out of bread mid-week when it is inconvenient to go to the store. Add to that our refusal to buy bread with preservatives and whatnot added to it. So it was inevitable that we’d buy a bread machine. Living in a condo with a small kitchen, this machine was an easy choice because of size (we hardly notice it on the counter now). The price was a bit of an issue but we justified that based on the superlative reviews this model has received. The first two loaves of bread I baked were truly delicious though a bit dense — got the recipe off a website where the contributor owned an identical unit. But being new to bread-making, I didn’t realize that there was a difference between “bread flour” and something called “whole wheat bread flour”. I bought the latter… an absolutely delicious (and equally nutritious) version of regular whole wheat flour but of course requires more leavening than “bread flour”. I had bought these ingredients ahead of time, having no clue what the Zo’s own recipes contained, only knowing that most reviewers liked these recipes quite well. Loaf #3 was Zo’s basic white bread and it turned out beautifully. In fact it rose so much that it was flat against the lid by the third rise. I had to open it and deflate it with a toothpick. Anyway, I’d like to save anyone who has ordered this Zo from the trouble of buying the wrong ingredients for the first few loaves you’d probably make if this is your first experience with a bread machine. Here’s what you need for the regular cycle recipe for white bread from the Zo manual: water, bread flour, sugar, dry milk, salt, butter, active dry yeast (breadmaker yeast works too).
I also bought Beth Hensberger’s “The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook” after using Amazon’s search-inside feature and reading a bit of it. It’s very comprehensive and very educational for beginners like myself (600+ pages for $14). Though most of her recipes are for 2-lb loaves, she says you can halve the quantities for 1-lb. Some people disagree. My Loaf #4 (raisin bread) is such a conversion and I’m hoping she’s right! This Zo, by the way, is not made in Japan, but is made in China. The construction is of extremely high quality and certainly has that sort of “Hello Kitty” Japanese look to it. The bread pan is very thick and solid. It fits very easily into the slot in the machine and putting it in and taking it takes hardly any effort. I cannot believe just how easy the whole bread-making process is. I know that other reviewers have been saying that, but I couldn’t imagine that bread-making could ever be called easy. But this machine really does make it easy. The hardest part, I would say, is making precise measurements and learning about some of the chemistry behind bread-making. I’ve also never, ever baked anything that required so little clean-up. The bread pan and mixing paddle barely look like they are used after each loaf is removed. Once, there was a bit hard dough stuck in the tiny space between the paddle and the rod that holds it, and I found that the quickest way to clean it was to soak the whole thing in water for 10 minutes. I’m hesitant to soak it in soapy water because I don’t want anything eating into the non-stick coating. I’ve also been using the soft side of a sponge, not the scrubby side (even though the scrubby side is designed for non-stick coatings). The notch made in the bread by the paddle is quite insignificant. I’ve eaten airy breads with much larger holes in the slices before. The beeping sound after 30 minutes for adding extra ingredients and for completion of baking is soft and I’ve been using my microwave’s loud timer alongside the Zo to make sure I don’t miss it. The operation of the Zo is VERY quiet. My husband was in the kitchen cooking dinner while the bread was baking and I had to ask him to take a look and see if the machine was actually doing anything. (It was. It was kneading). Sometimes you can hear the whirr of the paddle in another room if there isn’t any other ambient noise. The unit came with a plastic measuring cup (1-cup size) and a plastic tablespoon/teaspoon measure. It also came with a VHS tape which was useless for me. A DVD would have been so much better, or even an online demo on […]. The buttons on the Zo itself are simple and self-explanatory. For example, I realized after putting in the ingredients of my last loaf that I’d have to use a new cycle and I was able to figure out in a matter of seconds which buttons to press. The Zo has a cake-making and jam-making feature and those will be my next ventures. The size of the 1-lb loaf, by the way, is substantial for two people – enough for two meals for two people.
Lastly, I did feel compelled to buy an additional 2-year warranty after reading some of the reviewers talk about units that conked out. (I bought it via Amazon from Square Trade for $22). I will follow up on this review in a few months.

10/13/2010 – Now that I’ve had this breadmaker for a few months, I have to say that I really love it. I use it 3-4 times a week. The process couldn’t be simpler. The breads come out perfectly every time. When we have company I bake two loaves using the quick cycle. The cake function is great though the loaves are small. They’re perfect for 2-3 people but not if you have company. Last week I used a 2-lb recipe for banana bread and had the Zojirushi mix it up but then I took it out and baked it in a regular size loaf pan in the oven. Turned out perfect. I’ve made jam twice. Both times the results were way too liquidy and uncooked and I had to transfer it to a saucepan to cook for an additional 20 mins on the stovetop. Still it saves you about an hour of stirring.

09/02/2011 – More than a year later, it’s still going strong. There are two small worn out patches inside the pan that make taking the bread out slightly harder but I suppose that’s to be expected when you bake 3-4 times a week.

This is my 3rd Zo in 25 years. I have had other makes such as Cuisinart, Oster and Breadman but a Zo is my favourite. I am a lazy person and really appreciate the preheat function so I can dump my ingredients in without warming butter, liquid, etc. I do rev up my energy when it comes to babying the dough ball. Too dry?,fix it. Too wet? Fix it. I also like to remove the dough before the bake cycle. I take the paddle out from the the Zo mini and shape the dough before putting the dough back in. I don’t trust any machine to produce a perfect shaped finished product. Another plus for this machine is the quiet kneading. It is by far the quietest machine I have ever had. Also it has never ‘walked’……The four star rating is because of the hardness of the crust despite using a soft and light setting. That is a personal preference thing for me and quite possibly would not be a negative for others. The only way I can get a more delicate crust is to use the dough setting only and then bake in the oven. My final verdict is that both the large Zo and the mini Zo are great machines and well worth the money.