After my first bread machine kicked it after 15 years of frequent (and successful) use, it was time to buy a new one. Even with the bad reviews, I still decided to buy this bread machine because I mostly use a machine to make pizza dough weekly. We made a batch of dough using the recipe in the manual, and it wasn't very good. I will try my tried and true recipe and see if that fares any better. We decided to make the herb bread recipe in the booklet because our family loves herb bread. Guess what happened? The bread fell in the middle! All ingredients are new and stored properly. Then I tried to make herb bread with my tried and true recipe. Guess what? Correct - the middle fell. It seems like this machine has a paddle that doesn't function properly for the shape of the pan. If I don't get good results using my regular pizza dough recipe, I am definitely returning this machine! What a waste of money!