Home » Misc » Oster 2lb expressbake bread maker

Oster 2lb expressbake bread maker


Oster Expressbake Breadmaker review: for easy, speedy loaves

There’s nothing quite as delicious as a homemade loaf of bread fresh out of the oven, but the traditional process of baking bread is quite time-consuming. You have to mix the ingredients and knead the loaf together, then wait patiently while it rises– sometimes multiple times – before baking it. The whole process requires lots of patience and careful attention, which is often in short supply for those with busy schedules, and that’s exactly why products like the Oster Expressbake Breadmaker are so popular.

This countertop appliance makes bread baking a truly hands-off task, and is perfect for matching up with the best toaster. All you do is measure the ingredients into its removable bread pan and press 'Start', and within a few hours, you’ll be rewarded with a freshly baked loaf of bread. The Oster Expressbake Breadmaker can make white, whole-grain, French, sweet, and even gluten-free bread, and it stands out from competitors thanks to its Expressbake setting, which bakes a loaf of bread in just one hour. It certainly sounds amazing, but is it one of the best bread makers on the market? 

As a professional product tester with several years of experience testing kitchen gadgets, I was excited to see if the Oster Expressbake Breadmaker was as cool as it seemed. I spent a week baking several loaves of bread and eating lots of toast along the way, and in the end, I was extremely pleased about how easy this appliance was to operate and clean. 

Today's best Oster Expressbake Breadmaker deals

£387.10

View

Product specs

(Image credit: Oster)

First impressions

(Image credit: Future)

The Oster Expressbake Breadmaker comes in a fairly light box, and upon opening it, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was minimal packaging inside. The appliance was held in place by two fairly small pieces of styrofoam, and it was easy to unbox, unlike many other kitchen appliances, which are wrapped in numerous layers of packaging. All of the included accessories were inside the breadmaker, including a measuring cup and spoon, and a hook that helps you get bread out of the pan if it’s ever stuck. 

(Image credit: Future)

This breadmaker was actually smaller than I expected, which I think is a good thing, especially for those who have smaller kitchens or limited storage space. I also like that all the accessories can be tucked away inside the appliance, making it compact to store. My only complaints were that the stainless steel finish smudges very easily—it already had fingerprint marks on it just from me taking it out of the box—and that the manual was creased in half.

Making white bread in the Oster Expressbake

(Image credit: Future)

To test this breadmaker, I baked my way through several of the recommended recipes, which are included in the manual. I started with a basic white bread in the smaller 1.5-pound size. I’m an avid baker, so I have most baking ingredients on hand, including specialty flours, different types of yeast, and even mix-ins like diastatic malt powder. Given my wide pantry, I was quite surprised to find that I actually didn’t have all the ingredients needed for a simple white bread recipe! In particular, this recipe requires a few tablespoons of dry milk, which I had to pick up from the grocery store before I could proceed with baking. 

(Image credit: Future)

Once I finally had all the ingredients handy, it was time to bake my first loaf. The process is truly simple: First, you add the liquid ingredients into the bread pan. In this case, it was just water and butter. Next, you add the dry ingredients on top. This included bread flour, salt, sugar, and the dry milk. Finally, you make a little well in the middle of the flour and spoon in your yeast. The instructions make it very clear that the yeast shouldn’t come in contact with the water when you’re adding ingredients, so it’s important to add everything in the order specified. One thing I thought was a bit annoying is that the included measuring spoon can only measure a teaspoon or tablespoon, and the recipe called for 1-3/4 teaspoons of yeast. It seems like a waste to include accessories that don't actually have the necessary measurements for the recipes.

With all the ingredients in the baking pan, I inserted the container into the appliance and locked it into place by turning it. I closed the lid, then selected the white bread setting, along with the 1.5-pound loaf setting and the medium “browning” setting. I hit the start button, and the machine started work immediately, churning the ingredients together to form dough. It’s fairly loud as it works, making a pulsing sound that I could hear throughout the house, but it only mixes the ingredients for a few minutes, then it’s quiet for most of the baking time.

(Image credit: Future)

This loaf of bread took around 2 hours and 40 minutes to bake, and when the appliance finished, it beeped several times. (The end-of-baking alert sounds similar to a fire alarm, so it actually scared me the first time.) I removed the bread pan using a pair of oven mitts, and the loaf slid out easily when I flipped the pan over. Because the loaf pan is tall and skinny, the loaf was a bit awkwardly shaped, and it had a small hole in the bottom from the mixing blade.

Unfortunately, it was apparent right away that something wasn’t quite right with my loaf. The top of it wasn’t smooth, making me think it hadn’t been mixed well enough, and when I cut it open, the bread was extremely dense. The taste was great, but the loaf was extremely heavy and doughy. I consulted the manual, which has a decent troubleshooting section, and it said this is often the result of using old flour. Admittedly, my flour had been sitting in the cupboard for six months or more, so I purchased a new bag before continuing with my testing.

(Image credit: Future)

Making honey grain bread

The next recipe I tested was a 2-pound loaf of honey grain bread, which included whole wheat flour, quick-cook oats, and a small amount of honey. This recipe was baked on the appliance’s whole grain setting, and it took around 3 hours and 20 minutes to cook. The process for adding ingredients was the same, and I made sure to use new bread flour and a new bag of whole wheat flour.

(Image credit: Future)

The baking process went off without a hitch, and a few hours later, I took out a beautiful loaf of whole grain bread. I could tell right away that this loaf was much better than the first – it had a nice smooth top and had risen more. The texture was infinitely lighter and more enjoyable to eat, and I liked the slightly sweet taste of the bread. It was great for morning toast and lunchtime sandwiches, and this is definitely a recipe I’d make again. 

(Image credit: Future)

Making apple walnut bread

The Oster Breadmaker can also be used to make sweet bread, so my next project was a 1.5-pound apple walnut loaf. Not only did this sound delicious, but it was also a great chance to test out the appliance’s mix-in dispenser. There’s a small container on top of the breadmaker where you can put nuts or dried fruit, and it automatically dispenses these ingredients at the right time during the baking cycle.

This recipe used applesauce and apple juice for its liquid ingredients, and it also contained sugar, an egg, and baking soda. After adding all the ingredients into the bread pan, I poured 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts into the dispenser and set the machine’s settings as usual. Then, I let it work its magic.

(Image credit: Future)

Because this was the first time I used mix-ins, I was caught off-guard when they dispensed into the bread. This happened around 20 minutes into the cycle, and the mixing noise changed as the hard nuts were adding to the loaf. It actually sounded like the machine was broken, so I got up and looked inside via the window on top to make sure everything was OK.

(Image credit: Future)

I had taken my dogs outside for a walk while this loaf was baking, and we got back around 30 minutes after it finished. The appliance’s “keep warm” setting had automatically turned on, and the bread was still warm when I finally took it out of the pan. The loaf had a great texture and smelled wonderful thanks to the addition of cinnamon, but I was a little disappointed that the apple taste didn’t come through very much. Additionally, a lot of the walnuts ended up in the bottom of the loaf. If I try this recipe again, I think I’d add some dried apple pieces to amp up the flavor and make sure the nuts were finely chopped so they don’t sink to the bottom.

Making an Expressbake loaf

I’d be remiss not to test out the appliance’s Expressbake option—after all, it’s what sets the machine apart from many others—so it was the final loaf that I cooked. The Expressbake recipes are designed to cook in less than an hour, and there are several changes you have to make to speed up the baking process. Expressbake recipes use fast-rising yeast instead of regular yeast, and you also have to heat up the water to 115 to 125 degrees before adding it to the pan. Additionally, you aren’t able to change the browning level when using the Expressbake setting.

(Image credit: Future)

I decided to try a 1.5-pound loaf of white bread on the Expressbake setting, and I was surprised to find that it called for 4 teaspoons of fast-rising yeast. (That’s a lot.) I followed the instructions carefully, making sure to use a digital thermometer to get the water to the right temperature, and an hour later, my bread was baked. 

(Image credit: Future)

I didn’t have high expectations for this loaf—after all, bread traditionally needs way more than 14 minutes to rise—but it wasn’t bad! The bread wasn’t as browned as other loaves, but it has a light, fluffy texture. The taste was plain, but I think you could easily dress it up with butter or jam. Overall, it was a solid loaf of bread considering how quickly it was baked.

(Image credit: Future)

Cleaning the Oster Expressbake

The manual warns not to put the bread pan in the dishwasher, as it will likely harm the finish. However, the good news is that the pan is incredibly easy to clean—and this is coming from someone who hates hand-washing anything. 

Because the loaves slide out so easily, the pan barely has any residue left behind after use. Sometimes there’s a little flour or a piece of crust that gets stuck on the mixing blade, but I never needed to do anything more than rinse the pan and wipe it out with a paper towel. It’s actually one of the easiest-to-clean kitchen appliances I’ve ever owned. 

Should you buy the Oster Expressbake Breadmaker?

(Image credit: Future)

Overall, I was impressed with the Oster Expressbake Breadmaker and the loaves of bread it produced. While there was a hiccup the first time I used it, I was able to troubleshoot the problem using the manual, and all the other recipes I tried came out great. The appliance is quite versatile, allowing you to bake several types of bread, and the Expressbake function is ideal for those times you want fresh-baked bread but don’t have a lot of time. 

Not only does it perform well, but this breadmaker is actually one of the more affordable options available today, retailing for around $100. The loaves do have an unconventional shape, which might be a turnoff for some people, but the versatility and ease of use make it a worthwhile purchase for anyone who’s looking to make homemade bread. 

About this review, and the reviewer

Camryn Rabideau is a freelance writer and product reviewer who has been testing small kitchen appliances (as well as other home goods) for several years. She’s tested everything from toasters to oil infusion machines, and as an avid baker, she loves trying out any gadgets that promise to make her creations more delicious or easier to bake.

Camryn does her product testing from her small homestead in beautiful Rhode Island. When she’s not tinkering around with the latest home gadgets, she spends her time tending to her animals, working in her garden, or crafting. 

Camryn Rabideau is a freelance writer and product reviewer specializing in home, kitchen, and pet products. In her five years as a product tester, she's tested hundreds of items firsthand, and her work appears in publications such as Forbes, USA Today, The Spruce, Food52, and more.

Camryn does her product testing from her small homestead in beautiful Rhode Island. When she’s not tinkering around with the latest home gadgets, she spends her time tending to her animals, working in her garden, or crafting. 

Oster ExpressBake Bread Maker Review: Affordable and Effective

We purchased the Oster ExpressBake Bread Maker so our reviewer could put it to the test in her kitchen. Keep reading for our full product review.

After stocking up on flour and yeast, we put the Oster ExpressBake through its paces, working our way through each of the model’s setting and slicing and tasting the resulting breads. This type of machine makes bread baking easy, since you simply add ingredients in the recommended order, press a few buttons, and wait for the bread to bake. There’s no need to set timers to punch down or shape the dough, so it’s very convenient for inexperienced bread makers. Besides using the machine for baking bread, we also made pizza dough and mixed up a batch of jam. We sliced countless loaves and made a few more runs to the store for flour before we were confident we knew what this machine was capable of. Read on for what a few weeks of testing revealed.

The Spruce Eats / Donna Currie

Performance: Decidedly solid

We started our testing by whipping up a basic white bread recipe from the included booklet—and the result was spot-on. After good first results, we decided to try one of the ExpressBake settings which produces a loaf in less than an hour. Compared to our successful white bread, the quickly baked bread was short, dense, dark on the sides, pale on the top, and slightly torn from rapid rising. While that sounds like a lot of flaws, the loaf was actually pretty attractive, just in a rustic way.

After running through a few more of the included recipes with favorable results, we progressed to using our own to test the machine’s versatility. Some worked, but many of them gave us loaves with sunken tops rather than a nice dome. While the concave loaves weren’t the most aesthetically appealing, they were fully baked and tasted good, so we still used them for sandwiches, toast, croutons, and bread crumbs.

We started our testing by whipping up a basic white bread recipe from the included booklet—and the result was spot-on.

Since I’ve been baking bread for decades and have authored my own cookbook, Make Ahead Bread, I know that bread can be a little finicky and that different brands of flour or yeast can make a difference in the result. For this reason, I wasn’t surprised when some of the loaves weren’t perfect on the first try, and was actually impressed at how many recipes worked well.

The included recipe booklet has tips for adjusting ingredients when bread doesn’t turn out as expected. Generally, the adjustments are minor; sometimes all it takes is reducing the yeast by ¼ of a teaspoon. The adjustments aren’t terribly difficult, though it can take a bit of trial and error to figure out exactly how much adjustment is needed for a perfect loaf. Using those tips as our guide, we were able to tweak our recipes and got better results on subsequent attempts.

One downside to many of our loaves was that the sides tended to be darker than the top.

One downside to many of our loaves was that the sides tended to be darker than the top. That makes sense, since the heat comes from the bottom of the machine. While this was barely noticeable on some loaves, on ExpressBake breads, the top was far paler.

The Spruce Eats / Donna Currie

Design: Plain Jane

The Oster bread maker isn’t the prettiest kitchen appliance you’ll find. It’s white, mostly square, and the front is rather plain as all the controls are on the top. While it’s not super attractive, it’s also not intrusive, measuring just 12 x 11 x 11 inches, so you can tuck it out of sight in a corner. Since it’s lightweight at just 8 pounds, it’s also easy to move into storage when not in use. Two small hand-holds on the side make it a cinch to hold and carry.

The control buttons are clearly labeled and a list of available programs is printed to the left of the buttons. The LCD screen shows your selections along with the baking time, so you can make sure you’ve got everything set correctly before pressing the start button. One downside is that the screen isn’t backlit, so it’s a bit difficult to read if your kitchen isn’t well-lit.

The top of the machine is removable, which is great for cleaning, but we found this out by surprise when we accidentally knocked it off. A round window in the top of the lid lets you peek at the dough as it mixes, kneads, bakes, and rests, but there are times when the lid gets too steamy to see what’s going on. Still, it’s better than having no window at all.

The start button lights up in blue when the machine is active, and it blinks when baking is done. The machine beeps insistently after finishing and then switches into warm mode for an hour. Once 60 minutes have ticked by, it beeps again and automatically turns off. We suggest retrieving the bread as soon as it’s done, so it has time to cool before you slice it.

The Spruce Eats / Donna Currie

Features: Lots of settings

This machine has 12 different baking programs including two ExpressBake settings for different sized loaves. A Quick setting bakes bread faster than usual, but not as fast as ExpressBake. We like the results of the Quick setting better that the ExpressBake, but both were acceptable for a rushed loaf. For most of the programs, you can set your loaf size (maximum is 2 pounds) and crust color, so there are plenty of options to choose from.

A timer lets you set the baking time up to 13 hours in advance. Since this machine doesn’t have clock, however, we needed to do the math to figure out how long the delay time should be.

Besides baking bread, the machine can also be used for mixing and cooking jam, and we were quite pleased with the results when we tried it. The dough setting mixes and kneads dough and lets it rise gently. We used this setting for pizza dough, which we refrigerated and used the next day, but you can also shape it and bake in the oven immediately. The Oster is also great for making dinner rolls, bread sticks, and other breads that don’t get baked in a bread pan.

A timer lets you set the baking time up to 13 hours in advance. Since this machine doesn’t have clock, however, we needed to do the math to figure out how long the delay time should be. Still, it’s a very convenient feature.

Included Accessories: Basic measuring cups

The Oster ExpressBake comes with a liquid measuring cup, a measuring spoon, and a tool for extracting the paddle from the bread. The extraction tool is simple, but we found it very useful as the paddle remained in most loaves after they finished baking. The liquid measuring cup is quite basic, but is certainly handy to have. One thing we found odd was that many of the recipes require 1 ⅜ cups of water, but the measuring cup didn’t have a ⅜ measure. When we made those recipes, we had to estimate the halfway point between ¼ and ½ cup.

Price: Affordable

With a retail price of $89.99, the Oster bread maker is pretty middle of the road. The machine’s results were consistently good (especially if you follow the included recipes) and it has plenty of features for folks who want to expand their skills beyond a basic loaf every once in a while.

Competition: More features = more money

Hamilton Beach HomeBaker: The Hamilton Beach HomeBaker is quite similar to the Oster bread machine both in price and performance. We did find that the Oster was slightly better at producing good loaves on the first try, though, and more accommodating when making creative loaves. Once you’ve used a machine for a while and you’ve tweaked recipes to work with your ingredients, altitude, and the temperature of your kitchen, either machine will be reliable. That said, the Hamilton Beach bread machine has a gluten-free setting, so if that’s an important consideration, it’s worth a look. If you don’t need a gluten-free setting, we give Oster the nod for its slightly more reliable performance.

Hamilton Beach HomeBaker Review

Zojirushi Home Bakery Virtuoso Plus Bread Maker: If you’re willing to shell out more on your bread machine (to the tune of $375 MSRP), the Zojirushi Home Bakery Virtuoso Plus Bread Maker is our pick. The machine has enough options to keep you experimenting with new breads for a long time, and the included recipe book offers reliable recipes and tips on how to adjust ingredients for best results. Along with preset settings, the user can program three custom bread settings, adjusting everything from the initial rest to the kneading, rising, and baking time. While the more hands-on nature of the machine may not appeal to everyone, it’s ideal for those who want to try more advanced recipes. In the end, Oster suits those looking to make occasional loaves while the Zojirushi is a worthwhile investment for serious bakers.

Zojirushi Home Bakery Virtuoso Plus Bread Maker Review

Final Verdict

A good machine for the price.

For the price, Oster performs admirably. It doesn’t have the bells and whistles of more expensive models, but it reliably produces nice loaves whether you want to use the included recipe booklet or try out your own creation.

Instruction manual for Oster 2lb. Expressbake Breadmaker, Bread Maker Manuals, User Guide for Application

Instruction Manual Oster Bread Maker Oster 2lb.

Expressbake Breadmaker - ManualsBase.com Owner's Manual Oster Bread Maker Oster 2lb. Expressbake Breadmaker - ManualsBase.com - Solve Your Problem

Instruction manual for Oster Bread Maker Oster 2lb. Expressbake Breadmaker

Device: Oster Bread Maker Oster 2lb. Expressbake Breadmaker
Size: 5.48 MB
Added: 2013-09-07 18:02:30
Number of pages: 40
Print instructions

Download

How to use?

Our goal is to provide you with the quickest access to the user manual for your Oster Bread Maker Oster 2lb. Expressbake Bread Maker. By browsing online you can quickly skim through the contents and go to the page where you will find the solution to your problem with Oster Bread Maker Oster 2lb. Expressbake Bread Maker.

For Your Convenience

If viewing the Oster Bread Maker Oster 2lb. Expressbake Breadmaker directly on this page is inconvenient for you, you can use two possible solutions:

Instruction Manual Oster Bread Maker Oster 2lb.

Learn more