Countertop bread makers are pretty amazing, performing all the kneading, proofing, and baking required to make your favorite breads all on its own. The Panasonic Mini Bread & Ice Cream Maker, though, takes things to the next level by equipping the bread maker with the ability to churn out frozen ice cream treats.
That’s right, it’s a bread maker and ice cream maker in a single machine, allowing you to essentially get two appliances taking up just one chunk of space in the kitchen. And no, there’s no separate chambers for each function. Instead, everything happens in the exact same main compartment, making for an impressively versatile and space saving solution.
The Panasonic Mini Bread & Ice Cream Maker looks like any compact countertop bread maker. And you can use it as one, eliminating the need for tedious manual kneading or using a separate stand mixer. It has 31 different programs for baked goods that you can choose from the menu, allowing you to use it to make everything from French bread and Italian bread to cake and pizza dough to brownies and scones to cookies and mochis to a whole lot more. It also has separate programs for kneading bread, kneading cake, and rising, in case you just want to use it to automate the dough-making process while doing the actual baking in a larger oven. Like many compact bread makers, it’s designed to make a single loaf in one go, so you will need to use a separate oven if you want to make a single big batch of baked goods.
It can create a loaves up to 500g in one session, so it can crank out decent-sized breads in one go. Everything is automated, too, so you just dump the ingredients in the bread container, put it inside, choose your program, and let the machine do the rest. It also has a designated container for yeast, with the machine itself dispensing just the right amounts at the exact right time to ensure everything works as it should. According to the outfit, it can perform artisan-quality kneading techniques, while allotting the proper time for the dough to rest depending on the recipe before starting the baking process.
The Panasonic Mini Bread & Ice Cream Maker also comes with an ice cream container. To use, put your ingredients in the container and freeze it overnight. The next day, take the bread tin out of the machine, put in the ice cream container, and choose the program you want. It offers three options for frozen desserts, namely ice cream, frozen yogurt, and sorbet, with the machine able to churn out the finished frozen treat in just 25 minutes.
It measures 11.9 x 9.5 x 12.1 inches (width x depth x height), so it takes up about the same counter space as a countertop oven, making it easy enough to find room for in most homes. Other features an onboard digital display (no backlighting, though), capacitive controls, a carry handle (so you can easily move it around the kitchen), an automatic nut and raisin dispenser, maximum timer setting of 13 hours, a total weight of 13.4 pounds, and a companion app with over 50 bread and ice cream recipes.
The Panasonic Mini Bread & Ice Cream Maker comes out later in the year. No pricing has been announced yet.
