Niels

It’s amazing how much cost of living differs. It blows my mind that someone can get a loaf for $0.89 at the grocery store – I don’t think any loaf is less than $2.50 where I shop.

Making your bread does save a LITTLE bit of money, but equally (actually, more) important to me is the taste + health benefit. Once you make your own bread and realize it goes stale in a couple days (solved by slicing and freezing), you subsequently realize that commercial breads are full of “texturizing agents” which keep it soft and “fresh” for a suspicious length of time. I’d rather not eat anything with high fructose corn syrup or guar gum or xanthum gum, etc.

Thanks for featuring my video, J.D.!

Jessica

The other way I save money by baking bread is by not having to go to the grocery store when we eat the last piece of bread. No need to run for a loaf a bread and come home spending more than expected.

Steve, You can get some good yeast for cheap here: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/saf-red-instant-yeast-16-oz.

I’ve never purchased that. I bought 2 lbs of yeast at Sams Club a year ago and have hardly made a dent (I make at least 2 loafs per week, usually more, sometime sourdough (no yeast)). It’s real cheap at Sam’s. I think it was like $2 for the 2 lbs. Get the Instant, or Bread Machine yeast, but use less yeast if the recipe calls for Active Dry.

Homemade bread goes stale more *slowly* than store-bought in my experience. Just keep the loaf wrapped securely in plastic wrap (it usually takes 2 pieces of wrap when the loaf is new) and it stays fresh for a week.

But for the rest of our bread needs I’m usually making our own – once you get it down it can be very flexible!

i’ll cook/bake several items when i have to have the oven on, so i’ll just set the bowl of dough on the stovetop. since the oven is on, the heat from it will be enough to make the dough rise

Ok, so you might not be able to make two fantastic artisan loaves the first time you follow a recipe and bung your bread in the oven, but a little practice will pay dividends over time.

I definitely subscribe to the school of thought that suggests preheating the oven for a few minutes at the lowest setting (5 minutes works for me) to help the dough rise. Also, I never worry about setting my tea towel alight as I’ve always been taught to use a damp tea towel.

One great tip from English author John Harrison (he wrote a book called Low-Cost Living that is enjoyable (if a bit Anglo-centric)) is that your oven uses the same power whether you’re baking one loaf of bread or six. So, with some cheap loaf tins (available in the UK for about $1.50 each), you can make half a dozen loaves in a similar time for not that much extra effort.

This also gets around the fact that home made bread goes stale quicker – you can make smaller loaves if necessary and freeze any of the loaves you don’t need for the next couple of days’ consumption.

If, like me, you like to experiment with different recipes, the King Arthur Flour website is a wonderful place. They test all their recipes extensively, and will answer questions by email or phone if you have any issues.
http://www.kingarthurflour.com
Plus, any recipes published on their blog have step by step pictures of the whole process.

It’s easy to use a calculator to figure out the cost per cup. If 5 lbs. of flour is $1.49, divide by 18, it costs .08 per cup, etc. I think my cheapest bread recipe is sourdough, because it doesn’t call for purchased yeast or an egg. A 9 inch loaf costs about 30 cents.

We also make our own pizza dough and make homemade pizza like MDB above. So much better and cheaper than ordering out.

Where are they buying bread from? Nordstrom??

Today I promised my wife that I will bake bread for us on Monday again.

I think if we can all make it habit of baking our own we will make more money in the process. There will be more money staying worm in our pockets that we can use to make more money.

I like my home-made bread!

However, conditional on buying high quality bread, making bread can save money.

Whether or not you’re saving money depends on your comparison groups. I would never buy generic wonderbread, so the cost of generic wonderbread compared to homemade is irrelevant. Someone who likes wonderbread would be making a different comparison and may be better off sticking to store-bought.