The invention of bread maker

Long considered a twentieth-century marvel, the automatic bread-making machine debuted at the end of the nineteenth century.

Created by a Massachusetts inventor named Joseph Lee (1849-1905), the prototype of the modern bread maker mixed and kneaded ingredients with commendable speed.

Joseph Lee (1849-1905)

In 1895, he patented the idea for a machine that would grind stale, otherwise unusable bread into crumbs to be used in cooking. After that he invented a bread-making machine that made bread faster than six people could and more cheaply. This bread-making machine eliminated the need for kneading the dough by hand.

Both machines are the basis for thousands of similar machines used around the world today.

After the end of World War II in 1945, Japan suffered a severe food shortage. The American occupying forces under General Douglas MacArthur reintroduced wheat bread to feed schoolchildren, and this time the Japanese loved it.

In the 1970s, as Japan was experiencing an economic boom, young Japanese were finding a breakfast of bacon and eggs with orange juice and bread or rolls to be more convenient than fish and a bowl of rice with pickled vegetables. Unfortunately for a Japanese housewife, her family wanted very fresh bread.

An electrical engineer, Shin Ojima, invented the programmable bread machine to end this daily inconvenience. Although he had difficulty finding a manufacturer, at last in 1987 the first automatic bread machines were introduced in Japan.

In 1988, Zoji Corporation marketed the Home Baker, an all-in-one bread-making appliance that proofs, mixes, kneads, rises, shapes and bakes the bread dough within hours.
The invention of bread maker