The Breadman Ultimate TR-2200C is a well-built easy to use and powerful bread machine. It is a traditional or horizontal shaped pan and is capable of making 1, 1.5, and 2-pound loaves. It features 35+ bread cycle settings and an extras ingredient dispenser. The 35+ bread cycle settings can be a little misleading if you don’t understand what is happening. You get basic bread, basic rapid, whole wheat, rapid whole wheat, French bread, sweet bread, batter bread/cake, jam, dough, pasta dough, and personal recipe cycles. That is ten primary cycles. The rest of the 25+ cycles come from what you select for the crust darkness and loaf size. You also end up with more cycles when you use the extras program and delay bake modes. Suffice it to say you get more than enough modes and with the personal and program cycles you can custom program whatever you need. They classify all of these as different cycles because a 2-pound white cycle is different from a 1-1/2 pound white cycle. The 2-pound bakes longer and at a different temperature. There are a few weak areas. For example, I would like to be able to use the delay timer with the dough cycle; I would also like to be able to use the extras ingredient dispenser with the dough cycle. Currently, both options are unavailable.

I was worried about how well this machine was going to knead the dough. With the pan, being wider than it is deep and having only one kneading paddle, I figured that the ingredients in the corners of the pan wouldn’t be mixed in and kneaded. To my surprise, this didn’t happen. Overall, I was very impressed with how this one paddle machine kneads. My only other complaint aside from the dough cycle limitations is that the pan shape is a bit awkward. It tends to make a taller loaf of bread than I would like. If the pan were, an inch or so wider it would be better. However, this shape is still much more useable than the old vertical loafs from the machines.

We made white bread, wheat bread, quick white bread, jam, bread dough, batter breads, and cakes. They all turned out great. The only thing that you have to keep an eye out for is how you measure your ingredients. Make sure you follow good measuring practices. In addition, when making jam with fruit juice the paddle tends to splash some of the juice on to the insides of the machine, but the jam and jellies are great. The best way to deal with the splashing is to put foil over the pan.

The Breadman Ultimate is one of the few machines on the market with a 24-hour delay timer. This is great for people that can plan that far ahead. Me I am a last minute type of person. Just remember when using the timer that you can’t use any ingredients that will spoil. This goes for eggs, milk, cream, butter, etc.

If this machine doesn’t have a cycle that will work for what you want to do, you have two choices. One, you can use the “Personal Recipes” mode and create your own cycle from start to finish. This mode allows you to control the amount of time for all areas of the cycle, including using the extras dispenser, pre-heat time, knead 1 time, knead 2 time, rise 1 time, punch down, rise 2 time, shaping, rise 3 time, baking and keep warm times. All of this programming is done before you assemble the ingredients. What this means is you program the machine, assemble the ingredients, put the pan in the machine, start the machine and come back when it is all done.

Your second choice is using the “program” mode. What this allows you to do is to take an existing cycle like Whole Wheat and change the times for that cycle. Once you have made the changes to the selected cycle, the Breadman Ultimate `97 will factor in the variations for the 1, 1.5, and 2-pound and the light, medium, and dark variations for that cycle.

Also, included is an instructional video, an instructions book and a recipe book. The video that came in the package was much damaged and was useless. However, I have been assured that if I called them they would have sent a replacement. Things like this tend to happen even to the best of videotapes.

Overall, I am very impressed with the Breadman Ultimate. It worked perfectly and without making a single doorstop. If you’re looking for a new machine or if you want to upgrade to a better machine, this is definitely one I would look at.

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