The Zojirushi BB-SSC10 Home Bakery Maestro might be small, but it is not cheap. It bakes a 1-pound loaf size. This tiny bread machine requires less counter space than other bread makers, but it costs more money than expected. My review of the Zojirushi BB-SSC10 Home Bakery Maestro tries to answer a few questions such as why you should buy it, how it compares to the Zojirushi BB-HAC10 mini bread machine and who might enjoy using it.
Why Buy The Zojirushi BB-SSC10 Home Bakery Maestro?
You might be interested in this 1-pound loaf bread machine if you have a small household of one or two people. This mini bread machine is not recommended for large families. I know from experience that a one pound banana bread loaf can disappear within a few hours if there are four people in the kitchen!
The BB-SSC10 Home Bakery Maestro has a smaller footprint than other Zojirushi bread machines such as the BB-PDC20, which makes a 2-pound loaf. This might be convenient if you have a small kitchen and want to save a few inches of counter space.
The Home Bakery Maestro is a prodigy when it comes to preset program courses. It has gluten-free, salt-free and sugar-free bread making programs. There is even a Vegan menu course.
The Homemade course gives you the option to create your own bread making courses from scratch. You can enter custom times for kneading, resting, shaping, rising and baking. If you are satisfied with your programming, then you can save the information in one of the three available memory slots for future use.
Zojirushi has managed to fit an automatic dispenser inside the lid of this tiny bread machine. The dispenser automatically opens and adds ingredients such as nuts or seeds into the baking pan during the kneading cycle. The adding dispenser is detachable, which makes it easy to fill with ingredients or to wash after use.
What do you do if the automatic dispenser is too small for the nuts and seeds? Well, you can always add extra ingredients into the dough by hand if necessary. The Zojirushi Home Bakery Maestro will automatically alert you (with a beep and blinking text) during the kneading cycle to open the lid and add something if you want to. The dough kneading blade stops while the lid is open. Remember to close the lid.
These are the most important reasons why you might consider baking one pound bread loaves with the Zojirushi BB-SSC10 Home Bakery Maestro. Shop now on Amazon (paid link).
Dimensions
The Zojirushi BB-SSC10 is roughly an inch bigger on all sides when compared to the BB-HAC10. Its dimensions are 8.8 inches wide, 13.6 high and 12.5 inches deep. It is still smaller than a 2-lb bread machine. Therefore, it saves you a few inches of counter space. This small bread maker comes with a power cord that is 3.3 feet long.
Menu Courses
A list of all the menu courses are conveniently located on the top of the lid. There are 10 menu settings for making bread. The machine can make white, whole wheat, multigrain and gluten-free breads. I am not sure about the salt-free and vegan bread settings. Nevertheless, you might use the sugar-free bread program, if you prefer to limit your sugar intake to the minimum.
Two dough settings are available for making bread, pizza or pasta dough. There are also settings for making cake and jam. The homemade setting has three memory places for saving your own programs.
Electrical Specifications
The Zojirushi BB-SSC10 has an electrical rating for 120V, 60Hz, AC power. Its power consumption is surprisingly low, at only 450 watts for the heating elements and 83 watts for the motor.
Accessories
The bread maker is shipped with a measuring cup for water and liquids (do not measure flour with it). It also comes with a measuring spoon with two sides: one tablespoon and one teaspoon measure. The included recipe book has 50 recipes.
Zojirushi BB-SSC10 vs. BB-HAC10
Those of you who are familiar with Zojirushi bread machines might be wondering how the BB-SSC10 Home Bakery Maestro compares to the Zojirushi BB-HAC10 Home Bakery Mini, which is also a 1-pound loaf bread machine.
Let us start with the preset menu courses. The Zojirushi BB-HAC10 has settings for basic bread (regular or firm), quick bread, soft bread, French bread, dough, cookie/pasta dough, cake and jam. However, the Zojirushi BB-SSC10 offers a lot more settings:
- White
- European
- Quick White
- Whole Wheat
- Quick Whole Wheat
- Multigrain
- Gluten Free
- Salt Free
- Sugar Free
- Vegan
- Bread/Pizza Dough
- Pasta Dough
- Cake
- Jam
- Homemade (with 3 memories)
The BB-HAC10 Home Bakery Mini does not have a homemade custom setting with 3 memory spots. If you want to enter your own custom times for each cycle, then the BB-HAC10 is not for you.
The BB-SSC10 has an automatic fruit and nut dispenser in its lid. However, the viewing window is sacrificed to make space for the dispenser. The BB-HAC10 does not have a dispenser, but it has a small viewing window.
Both of these 1-pound loaf bread makers have an LCD screen, but the BB-SSC10 also has a 24-hour clock, which the BB-HAC10 does not have.
They share other features such as a 13-hour delay timer, quick bread course, dough courses and crust control.
The biggest difference might be the retail price tags. The Zojirushi BB-SSC10 Home Bakery Maestro is more expensive than the BB-HAC10 Home Bakery Mini.
Therefore, you should carefully consider the similarities and differences of these two Zojirushi 1-pound loaf mini bread machines before making your purchase.
Who might enjoy the Zojirushi BB-SSC10?
The Zojirushi Home Bakery Maestro will be most useful for a single person or a couple who have a tiny kitchen, a large wallet and a healthy appetite. This mini bread machine is too small for a family of three or more persons, unless you are willing to bake a 1-lb bread loaf each day. You should follow the recipes in the included recipe book closely until you have enough experience to create and save your own homemade 1-lb loaf recipes.
In the final analysis, the Zojirushi BB-SSC10 is a small, but tall, one pound loaf bread machine with lots of settings and features. Unfortunately, it is also a somewhat expensive bread maker for its 1-pound loaf size (check price on Amazon – paid link).