Is homemade bread REALLY cheaper?

immoral_angeluk

Made my first homemade bread today :T
Ok so I kind of cheated as I used Hovis 'bread mix' but it was my first attempt and I'm still getting my confidence up.
My question is is making homemade bread actually cheaper than buying store stuff? For example we normally buy warburtons which is about 96p. The mix I bought today was 89p, so not all that much different. But what about making it from scratch? Also is it possible to get bigger tins than 2lb?

spendaholic

I pay about 90p for a Hovis bag of flour that makes 3 loaves - that works out at 30p each for the flour, plus the yeast, butter, sugar and electricity. So, in monetary terms it's cheaper - much cheaper to make your own, but some may argue that the time and energy spent making it may make it less worth while. However, knowing what has gone into your food and knowing it truly is fresh, is priceless. And home made bread tastes so gorgeous too.

Granted, if I start to make organic bread, the flour will be dearer, but so is organic bread.

It's much cheaper to buy bread flour or strong flour than bread mixes, but the mixes are a great way to get into breadmaking at home.

Congratulations on making your first loaf.

daysieblue

At my last shop I bought 3 bags of Dove's Farm organic flour (2 white, 1 wholemeal - that's the mix we like!) and a pack of doves farm yeast. This was all £4.11. The flour will last me for about 9 loaves and the yeast could last me forever! There's loads of it!!! Even if you divide the cost of the yeast just over those 9 loaves, it's still only 46p per loaf- I would have thought no more than 60p a loaf when you include the oil, sugar etc.

So per loaf, definitely cheaper, but our bread consumption has gone up since I started making HM as the family love it! We now get through about 5 loafs a week, instead of a couple, but we're also not eating loads of bagels, crumpets, that sort of thing.

I guess in the end it's all swings and roundabouts, but I must say, waking up to the gorgeous smell of freshly baked bread is priceless. As is the peace of mind that comes with knowing exactly what's in your food

db xx

trulymadlydeeply_indebt!

This is a question I also keep asking myself IA.

Once I've got a bit more time and confidence, I will probably move over to the real deal of doing it with yeast etc., but for now I still get a warm glow knowing I did it myself.

I don't know if you can get bigger tins, but from memory, my mum used to make bread from scratch when I was a kid and her loaves always seemed bigger than the mixes I've been using recently.

Maybe next week ...................

kethry

it really does depend on what you're comparing your home made loaf to - its important to compare like for like. For example, comparing a loaf of home made white bread when you've had a bit of practice to plastic el cheapo bread is a very unfair comparison, because of the amount of love, practice and so on that goes into the home made white loaf.

If i were to make my bread purely as a white loaf, no seeds, then i think it would cost around 20p a loaf, purely for the ingredients, and then there's the cooking time on it - that, compared to a good white loaf, which would cost, what, 70-80p?

The cost savings go up with the more expensive loaves, like a seeded stoneground wholemeal loaf - lets say, a Warburton's Seeded loaf, which, the last time i bought one (about a year ago, its probably more now) was about £1.30 for the large loaf. Mine is very similiar (although it looks different): i add pumpkin seeds instead of their millet seed, and it probably has a different ratio of brown to white flour, and different yeast amounts (commercial bakers tend to add more yeast as it reduces the time it takes to make the bread rise, a good reason for making your own bread, eating too much yeast can cause imbalances in bacteria in the body), only mine probably costs somewhere in the region of around 30 to 50 pence per loaf, which is a hell of a saving.

In addition, if you make your own bread you can add things as you wish, or make up different recipes - e.g. walnut & maple bread is lovely with cheese for a dinner party, or goats cheese and thyme bread is great for a picnic, sundried tomato bread gives a lovely kick, then there's all the bready type things that can be made, like pizza, cinnamon rolls, iced buns and so on... i think you can see, even with having to buy the raw ingredients the savings that can be made with them.

in conclusion? if you are thinking of making your own bread purely for economics and you're used to buying plastic white bread.. then you probably aren't going to save very much at all, if anything. If you buy good, more expensive bread then you're going to save a lot more. Of course there are other reasons for making bread beyond the economic and it tends to be those reasons that i make it, rather than purely the cost factor.

regarding wanting a bread tin bigger than 2 lb.. i'm curious as to why you would want a loaf tin bigger than 2 lbs? This is the largest, as far as i know, that you can buy, at least that is readily available. if you want it to make loaves that will last longer, then i would suggest making two smaller loaves at once, as once a loaf is cut open, it goes dry and stale quicker than if it had been left intact. This is what i do - i make 2 1lb loaves and it does me and my other half quite happily for a few days - i usually make bread around twice a week. I did find this page which lists the sizes of the bread tins, so you can see how large a 2 lb loaf tin is - you may want to make sure you actually *have* a 2 lb loaf tin - i was always told mine was (by grandpa) but i know now that's incorrect (or i heard it wrong), and they're 1lb tins. The poundage refers to the amount of flour it takes to make a dough that fits the tin, if that helps - its an old baker's way of reckoning the tin size - rather than the amount of flour it takes.

HTH

keth
xx

thriftlady_2

I costed my bread out like this;

This quantity makes 3 large loaves in 2 lb tins. I divide the dough into 4 though, and make slightly smaller loaves as they are easier to cut for sandwiches. I haven't included fuel, but I bake all 4 loaves together.


1½ lbs (680g) wholemeal bread flour (Tesco stoneground) 42p
3 lbs (1360g) white bread flour (Tesco) 44p
1 tbsp (15g) yeast (Dove's Farm Quick yeast) 12p
1 tbsp (15g) sugar- 1p
1 tbsp (15g) salt - 0.4p

Total cost of ingredients = 99.4p
24.8p per loaf

Not only is it cheaper to make your own bread, but it far, far better than anything you can buy

newster

You can't beat the taste of home made bread though can you? Even bread made in a machine (which I do a lot now. Hardly ever do it all by hand. Used to. Have got lazy lol) tastes better than shop bought, and it's more filling. I don't find the flours too expensive really. I got some grannery last week for 95pence that will make two loaves with some left over which will go towards the next bag. Sainsburys wholemeal is about 95p think. Might be a bit more or less, but around about there, and that will make at least 3 to 4 loaves. Liddles plain white bread flour is the cheapest I think, then Asda do a good price on their bread flours as well :-)

squeaky

I use cheap and cheerful value plain flour at 29p per pack (makes three loaves) and I get my yeast free from the bakery section of my local supermarket.

So the only extra costs for ingredients on top of that are sugar, salt and (optional) oil or fats.

I also use the water left over from boiling potatoes which helps make light bread and means that you don't have to use vitamin C tablets to help the plain flour to rise because it has a lower gluten content than strong bread flour.

So I reckon on regularly making a loaf for not much more than 12p.

Of course - this takes skill, determination, and knowledge of the game

Not something to be tried as a first attempt - it's best to get to know your breadmaker first before you start doing serious cheats like these

johnjp

Remember you can also make Pizza bases, rolls, naan etc. I have not found organic Pizza bases in any shops. The advantage of home baking is that you don`t have to keep going to the shop every three days with the added temptation of buying other, possibly unnecessary, items. Also, if you don`t use a breadmaker, try to bake the bread using off-peak electricity. You could use the automatic timer on the oven. If you put the loaves in before going to bed then set the timer to bake it just before you get up it should be perfect. I`m presuming you have a warm kitchen!

eamon

I've been using my BM for 2 months now and I probably eat slightly less bread now. I use an all wholemeal mix mostly and make the 400g loaves. Probably working out at less than 40p per loaf. Once I get more experimental with the BM then who knows what they will cost. But I think its more to do with the satisfaction of making your own bread (well almost!) than trying to save money. Again as other posters have said what are you comparing against?

yours

Eamon

immoral_angeluk

Well we normally buy warburtons medium white bread which at last check was 96p a loaf.