Aug. 28, 2008 - How much I have saved making my own bread
I was chatting with a good friend, hey Jenn, and thought I would share the recipe I use for our homemade bread.
It's not as radical as you would think to make your own. I always have the ingredients on hand and I can make it as I need it. I have been making my own bread for 5 weeks with about 3-4 loaves a week. We enjoy the fresh flavor and taste of homemade bread and love the smell of it baking!
In the past I bought 3 loaves of bread per week at $2.25 each. So I saved $2.25 x 15 loaves for the 5 weeks= $33.75. In order to make the 3-4 loaves of bread a week I bought slightly more unbleached all-purpose flour which cost me about $10. I already had a year's worth of yeast in my freezer, from Sam's club in bulk, and I already have sugar and oil, etc on hand.
What I do is make up a batch of bread in the bread machine and make up 3 dry batches in clean and dry yogurt containers, the quart sized ones. I put all the dry ingredients except the yeast and set them up in my pantry as a ready to use bread mix. That saves me so much time. I know I wouldn't make bread if I had to get all the supplies out each and everytime.
I use the bread machine to mix, knead and rise the dough one time, about 1.5 hours total. Then I pull it out and put it in a Pampered chef loaf pan and cover loosely with a napkin. I then set the oven temp to 350*. When the oven beeps that it haas reached the right temp I uncover the loaf pan and set it in the oven to bake. I bake it for 30 minutes until the top is golden brown. I pull the loaf out of the pan immediately and let it cool on the counter on the napkin. I usually slice it with our electric knife after it has cooled completely, if the kids can wait.
I love to use the bread for PB&J, garlic toast, french toast, croutons, and snacks for the kids.
Here is the recipe:
Country White Bread
8 1/2 ounces water 80-90*
3 cups flour
2TBS dry milk
2 TBS sugar
1.5 tsp salt
2 TBS olive oil or butter
2 tsp active dry yeast
Add the ingredients in this order, making a little well in the center for the yeast, and adding the oil or butter around the perimeter of the pan.
I know some of you will read this and think I have gone off the deep end with homemaking but there will be some of you who will say I really need to grind my own wheat to make it super nutritious. I say to all of you,making bread works for me in this stage of my life and even though I appreciate the nutritional value of freshly ground wheat, I am not there yet. :) I am just grateful that I can be a step above store bought preservative laden bread.
Here are a few links on frugal bread making.
This one and this one includes video how tos.
