Abstract: An electrical timer for a household appliance typically has an integrated circuit including an internal presettable clock registering the time of day, an internal register storing a presettable activation time, and a gate generating an activation signal when an activation enable signal is present and the clock registers the activation time. To prevent an activation signal from being generated on a daily basis without manual intervention, a bistable circuit is provided to generate the activation enable signal in response to a cycle enable signal received from the appliance operator. The bistable circuit is set to activate the activation enable signal upon receipt of the cycle enable signal, and is reset by the activation enable signal to disable the activation enable signal. For a coffee maker, the bistable circuit is preferably reset by the activation signal at the active-to-inactive transition signalling the end of brewing.