Cuisinart CBK-100 Review
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The Cuisinart CBK-100 is a sleek, modern bread machine that will make 1-, 1.5-, or 2-pound loaves of bread. It features 12 pre-programmed settings including some notable ones such as gluten-free, pasta dough, and packet mix where you could insert a mix if you don’t want to get all the different ingredients to make bread. You can set the bread machine to one of 3 crust settings: light, medium, and dark. There’s also a 13-hour delay timer that you can take advantage of to delay the baking process up to 13 hours. The large viewing window at the top will allow you to watch the progress of your bread. The removable baking pan also comes with a single removable kneading blade.
The machine has a beautiful silver finish. It’s reminiscent of Breville or Zojirushi’s high-end bread makers. The shape is also similar. Most high-end machines are rectangular. Its modern look would match or become the center piece in any kitchen. However, it can be quite bulky for a small kitchen, so make sure you have a dedicated space in your kitchen if you’re going to buy this.
Our Cuisinart CBK-100 Review
We made a few loaves with the Cuisinart CBK-100 to test it out. One of the great features of this bread maker is the notifications. If your recipes typically incorporate fruits, nuts, seeds, cheese, or other extra ingredients, the bread maker will notify you when it’s time to add them. There will be 5 short beeps during the last 8 minutes of the second kneading cycle on several pre-programmed settings to remind you to add them. But that’s not all. After all the kneading is complete, the machine will beep 6 times to let you know that you can remove the kneading blade at this point to avoid having a hole baked into the bottom of your bread. You can make beautiful bread with this machine because of this great feature.
Make sure you add the liquids first and then the dry ingredients next. There’s an instruction booklet and recipe book that comes with this machine to help you. So even if you’re new to bread making, you shouldn’t have a problem using this machine. As with most machines, you set the volume first (for example, 2-pounds), then select the crust shade, then select which mode you want (for example, basic). Then press start. The menu on the Cuisinart CBK-100 is incredibly simple to operate. When your bread is done baking, it will beep 15 times to let you know. You should remove it once the baking cycle is complete and let cool on a baking rack. But if you don’t happen to be around, the machine will help you keep the bread warm for up to an hour.
With this machine, we think it handles extra ingredients really well. Whether it’s cheese, nuts, or fruits, the machine will tell you when it’s time to add them and the loaves turn out beautiful. They’re well incorporated. Plus, Cuisinart designed this machine so that you can remove the kneading blade and avoid it baking into your bread. This helps make the loaves even more beautiful! That said, we were extremely pleased with the overall function and design of this machine.
Cuisinart CBK-100 Rating
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Features
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Quality of Bread
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Price
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Performance
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Versatility
Summary
Don’t let the price fool you, the Cuisinart CBK-100 is a solid bread machine. If there’s any flaw, it would be the size of the machine. Otherwise the Cuisinart ranks amongst the top in terms of features, quality, and versatility.
Cuisinart CBK-100 Features At A Glance
- Makes a classic horizontal 1-, 1.5-, 2-pound loaf
- Bakes bread in 2 hours, and has a 13-hour delay timer
- Beautiful silver finish
- Has a large viewing window
- Has 12 pre-programmed settings: basic, French, whole wheat, sweet, gluten-free, packet mix, cake, dough, pasta dough, jam, bake-only, and rapid bake
- Has 3 crust settings
- Comes with instruction manual, “foolproof” recipe book, removable bake pan with a single removable kneading blade, measuring spoon, and measuring cup
Concluding Thoughts
When we received the Cuisinart CBK-100 we immediately felt it was a high-end machine despite paying less than $100 for it. But after we tested it we confirmed that it was indeed a great bread machine. It’s really simple to use and the bread comes out remarkably well. We want to note that it’s not only the regular breads but the specialty breads as well. There are quite a few useful options built into this machine. Plus it’s really versatile – makes everything from “packet mix” bread to gluten-free bread. Since it makes 1 to 2 pound bread, we would recommend it to small and large families alike.
Love this machine. It is very simple and the end product is always perfect. I bought an additional machine for my daughter in law.
Can’t wait to get mine tomorrow! Being delivered and at a great price from Amazon Prime! Will let you all know how it comes out!
Lacks one very important (to me) feature, I.e., no chart of cycle duration times. If I want to add something to the bread mixture I have to literally stay in the same room for the duration of the process. I have no way to gauge when to come back to add raisins, nuts, etc., Unless I stay with the machine. Very frustrating.
Thanks for your comments Victoria. There are definitely simple things these manufacturers can do to makes things more user friendly.
To make things easier on yourself, run the cycle once while you are in the same room and use a timer/make note of the time it gives you a signal. That way you can use your notes to gauge your timing for all the other times you use the machine. Hope this helps.
I just add nuts with the rest of the ingredients. Works just fine.
I am having the same frustration. Has anyone compiled cycle duration times for the various recipes? Thanks!
Has anyone made gluten free bread using this machine?
I make gluten free bread in mine all the time! I use the basic white bread setting; my recipes are traditional bread recipes, substituting gluten free flour (I use Pamela’s) and adding Xantham gun. Perfect bread every time. I’ve never actually used the gluten free setting, tho! 🙂
Does this machine have a “cooling” cycle?
Sort of, at end of baking it will go into warming mode which is cooler to prevent a steamed loaf. It’s obviously better to remove it after it’s done but if you can’t it’s a good feature to have.
Has anyone tried the Basic Honey Whole Wheat medium loaf. For some reason the medium loaf recipe calls for less liquid than the small loaf. The 100% While wheat recipe has the same volumes. The other recipes that I have read all have volumes that progress from the small loaf to the large loaf with the medium calling for an intermediate volume. I think this is an error, but I would like to know what the actual volume should be.
Has anyone had a problem like a clanging noise when making French bread? I was told by customer service that because dough is harder it might make some louder noise.
I have made 3 loaves of bread: basic white, cinnamon swirl and french. They all smelled soooo good while baking but they were all rather hard when finished. The first warm slice was ok but after they cooled, they were just too hard. The french loaf didn’t rise very well and the color was white; there isn’t a crust color option for french. The cinnamon swirl didn’t turn out because of my mistake but it was frustrating how it happened. I had just missed the beep time to add the ingredients. I went ahead and stopped it and put the ingredients in the dough (rolling it out on the counter, etc.) Then I put it back in the bread machine and it wouldn’t start where I left off. Because I missed the time frame, just by a minute, I had to start the whole mixing process all over again. I thought about leaving the loaf out until the mixing stopped but that was just too much of a pain. I wasn’t sure how long that process would take and I’d probably be in the same situation. I think it may just be easier to mix and bake my own bread. :((( It’s a little loud too while mixing: open concept floor plan doesn’t help. Anyway, sorry for the negative feedback. I was really excited to use the machine and would have given feedback either way.
What kind of flour did you use? I saw somewhere that flour specific for bread is different, resulting in a lighter and fluffier bread. Where as the basic AP white flour can result in a harder, denser loaf.
I know this is a few years too late, but if your recipe didn’t call for vital wheat gluten, you might want to add some. It helps a lot with texture. Eric’s response about type of flour is also relevant. Bread flour works better than all purpose flour for bread because it has a higher protein content. Adding vital wheat gluten also increases the protein. Gluten development during the kneading process provides a good crumb. If you knead by hand, you can control it by how long you knead. If you’re relying on pre-determined bread machine cycles, increasing the gluten increases your odds of the loaf coming out well, even if you do use bread flour.
You can’t actually pause the cycle on this machine. If you stop the cycle, it completely resets it. If you MUST add an ingredient at a certain point, have it ready and don’t stray far. The window to add ingredients after the 5 beeps is a bit short. You can always just add your mix-ins at the beginning of the cycle. You won’t get any marbling, and fruits and nuts might get chopped up a bit more, but flavor should still remain intact. A base model bread machine, as this is, when it was first released (I’ve had mine for probably 10 years now), wasn’t going to have flexibility built into higher end models. The (probably bad) workaround for this is to unplug the machine when you want it to pause – it’ll pick up where you left off as long as it’s not been unplugged more than 15 minutes (it’s a feature of the machine to account for brief power outages). I wouldn’t really recommend it, but some people do it.
Is there some way to turn the beeps off so it doesn’t wake everyone up?
no
I got my machine in Dec 2018 my intruction had the time cycles and it was notated on the timer when the bread was being processed.
Timings are given for the CBK-110 in https://www.cuisinart.com/share/pdf/manuals/cbk-110.pdf
Cuisinart Breadmaker (from CBK-110)
Add-ins 2lb
White 2:45 total 3:30
Whole wheat 3:20 total 4:10
French 3:05 total 4:20
Sweet 2:50 total 3:20
Packaged 2:14 total 2:34
Cake/quick 0 total 1:40
I have been searching for a timetable for the beeps as are a lot of CBK users. IOW how long is kneading for, rise, rest, etc? You have to ‘hear’ the beeps as it is and that’s not always possible.
The cycle times on machine and in book tell you the complete time and do remaining time from original time for each process on the machine display.
Where can I get actual paper copies of the manual/recipe book that came with this ? I purchased mine on eBay..no manual I don’t want a download copy
I was given one of these machines as a gift probably 10 years ago. I have gone through phases off and on where I used it a lot and then just didn’t for a long time. It has remained reliable over the years. I found a place to buy replacement bread pans because the gasket on the bottom of the pan fails and starts to leak liquid, which also means some liquid stays in the pieces at the bottom of the pan and burns during cooking, and can seep back up into the dough the next time you use it. It can be cleaned fairly well, but it’s a labor of love and way more time consuming than I prefer. I’ll confess that the pan has been through the dishwasher a lot of times, and hasn’t been promptly removed, and that probably contributed to the gasket failure. I’ll hand wash the new ones. After reading a lot of reviews, I decided I’d just buy 2 new pans for the price of a new CBK-200 machine, because this thing has been so consistent and reliable. If you find one used for a cheap price, consider that replacement parts for it are hard to find and expensive, but this was a well built machine.