Multicooker or bread machine: which appliance is better to choose?

In the mod­ern world, there are many devices to facil­i­tate the process of prepar­ing var­i­ous dish­es. Recent­ly, such elec­tri­cal appli­ances as a mul­ti­cook­er and a bread machine are gain­ing great pop­u­lar­i­ty. What these devices are intend­ed for, and which one to choose from, can be found in this arti­cle.

Characteristics and functionality of multicookers

A slow cook­er is a small piece of house­hold kitchen equip­ment for cook­ing. Thanks to its func­tions, this device can replace the oven, pot and pan.

The body of the mul­ti­cook­er is designed to quick­ly reach the required tem­per­a­ture and con­tribute to the rapid prepa­ra­tion of dish­es. The cook­ing con­tain­er, depend­ing on the mod­el, can have a capac­i­ty of 2 to 6 liters. The coat­ing mate­r­i­al also depends on the man­u­fac­tur­er, main­ly ceram­ic or Teflon.

Each appli­ance is equipped with a spe­cial con­trol pan­el that dis­plays all cook­ing pro­grams in var­i­ous modes, as well as the dura­tion of cook­ing and, in some new­er mod­els, the tem­per­a­ture.

On the lid of the device there is a spe­cial valve through which excess steam escapes. The heat­ing ele­ment itself is locat­ed under the cook­ing con­tain­er. In mod­ern­ized mod­els, such heaters can also be placed on the lid and around the bowl, which con­tributes to a more uni­form heat­ing of food and, as a result, an accel­er­at­ed cook­ing process.

Addi­tion­al­ly, each mul­ti­cook­er has a spe­cial con­tain­er in which con­den­sate col­lects dur­ing oper­a­tion of the device.

Tech­ni­cal para­me­ters depend­ing on the man­u­fac­tur­er, as well as dif­fer­ent mod­els, may have sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences, but the prin­ci­ples of oper­a­tion of this device are almost iden­ti­cal in all devices:

1. “Fry­ing” — used for cook­ing meat, fish or veg­etable dish­es. This pro­gram acti­vates a high tem­per­a­ture to heat up the oil.
2. “Kru­pa” – the mode is well suit­ed for cook­ing var­i­ous milk por­ridges or cook­ing cere­als. Sub­ject to the recipe, the cere­al is crumbly and not boiled.
3. “Steam Cook­ing” – when installing a spe­cial con­tain­er, you can cook var­i­ous dish­es with­out adding oil. This pro­gram is used for cook­ing pas­ta. After boil­ing water, you can pour them into a con­tain­er and cook in the usu­al way, like on a stove.
4. “Soup” — it is used both for the prepa­ra­tion of var­i­ous first cours­es, and for com­potes or fruit drinks.
5. “Extin­guish­ing” – This pro­gram is excel­lent for prepar­ing var­i­ous meat or veg­etable dish­es with a min­i­mum of oil.
6. “Bak­ery prod­ucts” — replaces the oven. You can cook baked meat dish­es, casseroles. Used for bak­ing flour prod­ucts and pies.

In more expen­sive devices, the “Heat­ing”, “Dough”, “Yogurt”, “Deep-fry­ing”, “Drinks”, “Mul­ti-cook” modes are addi­tion­al­ly installed.

Characteristics and functionality of the bread machine

A bread mak­er is a rel­a­tive­ly small elec­tri­cal appli­ance that is used to pre­pare bread prod­ucts, almost com­plete­ly automat­ing the bak­ing process. It is nec­es­sary to load only the ingre­di­ents of the future bread into the device, select the appro­pri­ate pro­gram and wait for the com­ple­tion of the cook­ing mode.

The hous­ing is designed to warm up quick­ly, dis­trib­ute heat even­ly inside the device and pre­vent exces­sive heat from the out­side.

Depend­ing on the mod­el, this appli­ance can cook from 500 g to 1.5 kg of pas­tries. The con­tain­er can be coat­ed with Teflon, alu­minum or stain­less steel. The shape in stan­dard devices is rec­tan­gu­lar, how­ev­er, some mod­els are equipped with a round, oval or square bak­ing con­tain­er.

The pan­el, depend­ing on the man­u­fac­tur­er, can be either mechan­i­cal or touch. It dis­plays the modes and bak­ing time. The lid on most of these devices is remov­able, which makes it eas­i­er to clean the device after use. It is advis­able to choose a trans­par­ent lid to con­trol bak­ing.

Each appli­ance is equipped with a timer that allows you to delay cook­ing for 12 hours.

Bak­ing func­tions are quite diverse, how­ev­er, each such device has a com­mon set of pro­grams:

• “Basic” — stan­dard basic mode, the aver­age dura­tion of the pro­gram is 3–4 hours;
• “Accel­er­at­ed” — the dura­tion of bak­ing is about 120 min­utes, how­ev­er, such a pro­gram wors­ens the appear­ance and taste of the prod­ucts;
• “Dough knead­ing” — the device inde­pen­dent­ly kneads the dough with­out human inter­ven­tion;
• “Bak­ery prod­ucts”;
• Choice of crust col­or — from light to dark brown.

Addi­tion­al­ly, the device may have the func­tions of bak­ing var­i­ous bread prod­ucts (oat­meal, Borodi­no, buck­wheat bread), mak­ing yogurt, jam and pre­serves.

In more mod­ern mod­els, there are the “Child Pro­tec­tion”, “Heat­ing” func­tions, as well as stor­ing the pro­gram in case of an emer­gency shut­down for a peri­od of 5 to 50 min­utes.

Popular Models

Con­sid­er the most pop­u­lar mod­els of the above devices in terms of price, qual­i­ty and func­tion­al­i­ty.

Multicookers

Vitesse VS-590. One of the most pop­u­lar mod­els at a fair­ly low price (aver­age 2,500 rubles). This appli­ance has all the basic modes, includ­ing delay start and warm­ing up the fin­ished dish. The case is met­al with plas­tic inserts. The mod­el is avail­able in three col­ors. Cook­ing con­tain­er with non-stick coat­ing and a vol­ume of 5 liters. Has many pos­i­tive reviews.

The dis­ad­van­tages of this device include weak pow­er, as well as the fact that the max­i­mum delay time for start­ing pro­grams is only 9 hours.

Polaris PMC 0517AD. This mod­el is pop­u­lar for its ver­sa­til­i­ty and low price (about 4,000 rubles). This device has 16 cook­ing modes and the “mul­ti-cook” func­tion, uni­form heat­ing of food, start delay for 24 hours, as well as heat­ing the fin­ished dish for the above time. The con­tain­er is cov­ered with ceram­ics, equipped with com­fort­able han­dles that remain cold dur­ing cook­ing. Vol­ume 5 liters.

The dis­ad­van­tages of this device include the incon­ve­nience in choos­ing a cook­ing pro­gram, the tem­per­a­ture dis­play is not in all modes, as well as fre­quent break­downs of the but­ton on the cov­er of the device.

Red­mond RMK-M271. This mod­el belongs to the mid­dle price cat­e­go­ry (about 5,500 rubles). Fea­tures include lift­ing the heat­ing ele­ment for cook­ing in a pan (includ­ed). Cov­er­ing of the con­tain­er for cook­ing ceram­ic, vol­ume 5 liters. The device has 42 pro­grams for cook­ing, as well as chang­ing the tem­per­a­ture before the start of the mode and dur­ing cook­ing, delay­ing the start and the heat­ing func­tion.

The dis­ad­van­tages of this mod­el include a non-remov­able lid, which great­ly com­pli­cates the clean­ing of the device, as well as the slow heat­ing of the pan.

BORK U800. It belongs to the class of “pre­mi­um”. The fea­tures include recipes entered into the device pro­gram, con­ve­nient con­trol, voice scor­ing of all device actions and many cook­ing pro­grams. This mod­el has a capac­i­ty of 5 liters, mul­ti­lay­er non-stick coat­ing. It has han­dles and is dish­wash­er safe. You can post­pone the start of the pro­gram for 13 hours, and the func­tion of heat­ing cooked food — for 36 hours.

The dis­ad­van­tages include the rather high cost of the device (on aver­age 34,000 rubles) and too loud voice scor­ing of the device’s actions.

bread makers

Goren­je BM900WII. One of the most pop­u­lar mod­els with a fair­ly low cost (about 4,500 rubles). With this device, you can cook var­i­ous types of bread, cakes and jams. It has a con­ve­nient menu, 15 bak­ing modes, a rec­tan­gu­lar bak­ing dish, and a trans­par­ent lid to mon­i­tor the cook­ing process. In such a device, there is also a delay in launch­ing and stor­ing the pro­gram for 10 min­utes. The dis­ad­van­tages of this mod­el include a small pow­er of the device.

Rolsen RBM-1160. Also applies to pop­u­lar mod­els with a bud­get cost (on aver­age 4,500 rubles). The advan­tage of this device is func­tion­al­i­ty (12 modes). With the help of such a device, you can adjust the weight of bak­ing, the col­or of the crust, post­pone the start of work for 13 hours, use the heat­ing of the fin­ished prod­uct, turn on the child lock of the device. Works well with a vari­ety of breads, jams and muffins. The down­sides include the smell of plas­tic dur­ing the first few uses.

Philips HD9016. This mod­el belongs to the mid­dle price cat­e­go­ry (about 7,000 rubles) and is pop­u­lar for its large num­ber of pro­grams and good qual­i­ty pas­tries and yogurts. It has an accel­er­at­ed bak­ing time. In such an appli­ance, you can also choose the size of the bread prod­uct and the col­or of the crust. Dur­ing knead­ing the dough, the device sig­nals the pos­si­bil­i­ty of adding addi­tion­al ingre­di­ents. This mod­el has a small size and a rel­a­tive­ly low noise lev­el. The dis­ad­van­tages include the rapid wear of the bak­ing con­tain­er.

BORK X800. Such a device can be attrib­uted to the most pop­u­lar bread machines among the cat­e­go­ry of peo­ple who are pas­sion­ate about bak­ing var­i­ous bread prod­ucts. It belongs to pre­mi­um-class devices and has a rather high cost (about 19,000 rubles). This device has 14 dif­fer­ent modes, as well as the abil­i­ty to inde­pen­dent­ly install pro­grams for bak­ing. The high­est qual­i­ty of bread prod­ucts, high pow­er and two forms for bak­ing (loaf and round). The dis­ad­van­tages include the rapid heat­ing of the case, the absence of the Russ­ian lan­guage in the menu.

Advantages and disadvantages

Mul­ti­cook­er. The pos­i­tive fac­tors include the ver­sa­til­i­ty of this device, since in a rel­a­tive­ly small device you can cook var­i­ous dish­es with­out much dif­fi­cul­ty and in a short time. Cov­ered con­tain­ers pro­vide for min­i­mal use of oil and pre­vent food from stick­ing. Anoth­er advan­tage is the func­tion of delay­ing the start of the pro­gram, since the start of cook­ing is pos­si­ble with­out direct human inter­ven­tion.

The dis­ad­van­tages include the price of such devices, as well as the fragili­ty of the coat­ing of the con­tain­er for cook­ing, which wears out quick­ly and is very eas­i­ly dam­aged dur­ing oper­a­tion.

Bread mak­er. The advan­tages include always fresh, tasty and var­ied bread, the prod­ucts for which are cho­sen inde­pen­dent­ly, which elim­i­nates the ingress of unwant­ed chem­i­cal addi­tives. You can also use such a device for the prepa­ra­tion of var­i­ous sweet flour prod­ucts, jam or yogurt. If such a device is avail­able, it can be used to knead dough for var­i­ous needs, such as dumplings and piz­za.

The dis­ad­van­tages include high cost, high elec­tric­i­ty con­sump­tion and dimen­sions, so in a small kitchen this appli­ance will take up a lot of space and cause incon­ve­nience.

Which device to choose?

The above devices great­ly sim­pli­fy the process of cook­ing, how­ev­er, each of them is designed to per­form cer­tain func­tions, so you should choose one of these devices based on your per­son­al needs.

If the pri­or­i­ty is a vari­ety of pas­tries, then you need to go to the store to buy a bread machine, since such a device, com­pared to a slow cook­er, copes with the prepa­ra­tion of bread prod­ucts more effi­cient­ly. In the case when it is planned to use the device for cook­ing var­i­ous dish­es, you should choose a mul­ti­cook­er.

Bread maker or slow cooker (video)?

This video pro­vides a brief overview of the main fea­tures and char­ac­ter­is­tics of mod­ern mul­ti­cook­ers and bread mak­ers.

If you need to make a choice between these devices, you should clear­ly indi­cate the pur­pose for which such a device will be used, since the mul­ti­cook­er is designed to pre­pare var­i­ous dish­es, includ­ing sim­ple pas­tries, while the main func­tion of the bread machine is to cook bread prod­ucts.