Last year my wife and I were given a bread maker. I thought to myself, "Cool, a bread maker". Little did I know...

Generally, the thing I hate about kitchen gadgetry is the uselessness per unit time spent cleaning all of the bits and pieces. This is NOT the case with the bread maker - at least the one we have (The Sunbeam, below). There is ONE bucket thing and one stirring blade (not sharp) to wash when you're done. It's non-stick so it literally takes about 15 seconds to wash both of these things.

The bread it makes is great, (did I mention it makes pizza dough as well?) and it takes ME about 10 minutes to put together a loaf of bread. My wife can do it in about 3 minutes... Then you just set the time you want it to be done for, usually we let it bake overnight so that we can wake up to the smell of fresh bread and have a warm slice in the morning.

No kidding people, this is one of those things (like the Viva Paper Towels) that has changed my life forever.