The Prepared Pantry California Raisin Gourmet Bread Mix; Single Pack; For Bread Machine or Oven

The mix itself is excellent. I used it in a bread machine, so keep this in mind. The flavor is excellent compared to the zero-fiber, over-yeasted rip-off paste you get at the supermarket.But...there are three things you should know:1) Do not follow the recipe with the butter. Three pounds of butter in a 1.5-pound loaf makes bread-flavored butter-soup. I suggest a half-stick of butter instead. (Unsalted, since the mix has tons of sodium in it.) Maybe only a little in the mix--just split the loaf when it's done and put the melted butter into the slit. I don't know--get creative.2) The included yeast was dead. If you're doing the bread machine thing like I did, just pop over to the grocery store and buy some Fleischmann's bread machine yeast. A lot of the bad reviews for this product are obviously due to too much butter in a loaf that didn't rise because of dead yeast. As I test, I remixed my deflated test loaf with Fleishmann's yeast, re-cooked it and it rose respectability. Case closed.3) Don't beat yourself up with the water temp if you're using a bread machine. Fresh yeast (like from a grocery store, where it moves off the shelf), will be fine at any temp from like 80 to 120 degrees. Anyway, if you're dumping the water at the bottom of bread machine's pan, it will be cooled to room temp because the pan is *metal*, and radiates the heat away immediately. The bread machine supplies the correct temp during the kneading and rise cycles. The initial water temp has very little to do with the actual temp of the mix when it's time to rise. Think about it.Also: Be careful how much water you put into the bread machine's pan. If you're putting a lot of butter in the mix, the water content of the butter counts toward the '1 cup' of water the instructions reference. Bread dough should be sticky and firm, and if rolled up in a ball it should stay in form--mostly. If it's too runny, it won't hold its shape during the rise phase, and the CO2 that yeast is producing will escape, and leave behind a deflated loaf of bread. Really just common sense.

Taste great and easy to use in a Bread Machine. The review by TP is clearly wrong. The directions state 3 TABLESPOONS and not 3 pounds of butter. I used 3 tablespoons of melted, cooled butter and it turned out great. TP's review should be corrected and reposted.

I love homemade bread and this brand is great! I use a bread machine and the bread comes out perfectly baked! Tastes soooo good!

Great taste and little effort

Great flavor and texture, so easy to use, bakes up quite nice!

I have tried a variety of bread mixes in a Cuisinart bread machine I received as a gift a couple months ago. To date I have found the Prepared Pantry mixes to be the best. As with other bread mixes, they are easy to use. The sourdough and rye mixes were particularly tasty. I look forward to trying other bread mixes from this company.

I purchased this Prepared Pantry kit and threw it all together in minutes and before I knew it, the machine was kneading and mixing the ingredient's for what was a 2 lb loaf of bread (even though my machine was only for a 1.5 lb loaf). As my machine’s manual warned, the loaf “proofed” to expand up to the cover of the inner pan but as it turned out it wasn’t really a problem. The loaf I ended up with was extremely tasty and I sliced the whole loaf and I ended up freezing 2 pieces per baggie, which the 4” x 4” slices fit into nicely. This allows me to take out the packets as needed to make fresh sandwiches as needed. I have 3 more packages of this Prepared Pantry mix to make, in different flavors, which I cannot wait to throw into my machine to get more delicious loaves…

Breakfast