A couple of weeks ago Aldi had a ‘Bake Off’ theme to some of their special buys and was offering customers the chance to get their hands on all things baking at a very reasonable price. From sprinkles and ingredients to a rather impressive looking classic stand cake mixer which at £79.99 is a HUGE difference in price to most out there. Ina Garten eat your heart out!

I bought the digital kitchen scales for £6.99, or rather my Mum bought them for me, and am very much looking forward to seeing her next so that I can get hold of them and dispose of my knackered plastic and enormous set I have now. I will let you know how I get on.

Aldi also, very kindly, asked if I would like to review something from the range and of my two choices (one was obviously the cake mixer alas I didn’t get chosen for that one) they sent me the Russell Hobbs Compact Bread Maker which they were selling for £39.99. If you look at the Russell Hobbs site you will see it is advertised there for a rather higher £59.99!

I have always wanted a bread maker and unlike when I usually get sent something electrical to review and leave it waiting for ‘another day’ as I feel daunted by the prospect I had it out of the box and working within  15 minutes of it arriving.

Was it as compact as I thought it would be? Well, no possibly not but it’s not large by any standards either and is very light weight so we are actually storing it on top of the cupboards when not in use. Saying that it has been in use a fair amount. Have you ever tasted fresh bread? It’s a little addictive…

It’s very easy to use and the instructions as very informative and to the point without being overwhelming with information. Recipes and how to use it in an easy order letting you know it can do three different colours to the crust, three differently sized loaves, a cake, speciality bread, French bread, sandwich bread, pizza dough, lots of other bread in between and even, would you believe, make jam to put ON the bread! Now that’s impressive!

You can put it on a timer so that the smell of freshly baked bread is what wakes you in the morning before your first meal of the day being a warm hunk slathered in salty butter (well, if you’re me that is) or you can set it to work straight away. I was smitten from the word go and this is what I produced on day one and day two of my bread making new ways!

A small sandwich loaf which was sweet and thick, almost like a scone and a large wholemeal loaf which I made using seeded wholemeal flour. Delicious!

My next challenge was to instruct it to make pizza dough. I make a lot of pizza and it always causes my husband to groan. He likes it but he can’t bear the fact I get flour all over the kitchen and when my friend told me she makes hers in her bread maker I knew this was going to be why I would love having one. The bread maker makes the dough, you take it out and leave it to rise a bit and then you roll it out to desired thickness before topping and cooking!

This aspect to the bread maker is without doubt my favourite. Fresh bread is excellent but perfect pizza dough with no mess? Well, it’s worth buying for that feature alone! I usually make pizza for the whole family but this time decided to do ‘posh pizza’ just for us. A date night at home if you will and I made it with toppings WE like rather than the children’s faves. (Don’t worry, next time i make it it’ll be for the children I promise!)

It’s easy to use and clean and even when the blade stays inside the loaf (this is often normal) it is simple to extract it. I am very, very impresses with this little bread maker I must say.

I have to say one negative thing though, one rather big negative thing actually… The second time I used it, to make the wholemeal loaf, it went a bit crazy. As it churns around it does kind of jump about a little bit but I had it on a flat work surface and towards the back. I was in the living room when I heard an almighty crash and when I ran to the kitchen I found the bread maker on the floor with the lid broken off, a crack in the lid front and the dough on the floor. I managed to put the lid back on but it is now very loose. Howeverm when I plugged it back in it carried on working and made me my loaf so it still works but the crack and loose lid is a bit of a shame.

Now, I don’t think it should jump around so much that it pulls the plug clear out of the wall but this is what happened and it must have been jumping around with some force to do so. I suppose a bit like washing machines move when they are spinning, so does the bread maker. I contacted Aldi customer services who agreed that it shouldn’t actually do this. They were very helpful and would happily refund a customer or send them a new product. By the time I wrote to them they no longer had any of this particular bread maker in stock so have offered an alternative which is of the same value and provides the same products but is their own brand. I will have to write about that one and let you know if it is even better than the Russell Hobbs bread maker which despite my one being faulty I still really like.

For those who lead a healthy lifestyle, a review about makers for gluten-free bread will also be useful.

I was sent the Russell Hobbs Compact Bread Maker from Aldi for the purpose of an honest review.