Is homemade bread REALLY cheaper?

countingthepennies

I dont have a problem with weighing my own ingredients. Its more a matter of having very little time (single parent, two jobs, doing a degree, one day off a week), and the bread mix is an easy compromise.
As princesstippytoes says, they have been a useful introduction to making my own bread.

simpywimpy

I havent had my machine out for ages but have been re-inspired by this thread.

Another point though is that anyone who does day trips to France, the flour (farine) there is pennies and probably not something you would automatically think of looking for when doing a supermarket visit.

I buy bread flour there for making baguettes and they are gorgeous tasting.

Just bought today a baguette separator tray in TK Maxx for £3 too.

zippychick

My bread calculations for 1.5lb size loaf. I did this the other day. My BM uses cups as quantities. Apparenty each flour is different in grammes

1 cup SWB = 144g or 6.5p
1 cup Granary = 150g or 18p
1 cup wholemeal = 132g or 9p

I worked out the cup price based on size of bag of flour, and price and qty of flour obviously

Cost white bread

Flour - 20p
Yeast 5p
25p total

3 in one - my new fave

i cup White 7p
1 cp granary 18p :eek:
1 cup wholemeal 9p
yeast 5p
total 39
Vit c tablet optional = 9p

All granary

granary x 3 54p
Yeast 5p
Vit c 9p
total 68p

If you used a whole jar of sundrieds 1.27 on white = 152, 3in1 = 1.66 . I doubt you would even use a whole jar.
I just don't understand how anyone can say its more expensive to bake your own.

Im off to toast some 3in1 with cheese.

simpywimpy

59p for a Jamie Oliver jar of sundried tomato in Home Bargains. It's on their thread and I ran down this morning to get some because of the recipes on here.

Penelope_Penguin

GDB2222 wrote: »

It seems crazy, but i just can't get home-made bread to make any sense economically.

Strong wholemeal flour is around £1 per kilo, so a large loaf is around 70p. Add a bit for yeast, oil, electricity etc. Quite possibly 10 litres of water to wash up, so that's another 10p that goes unnoticed.

If I dare to add anything to the loaf, the cost goes through the roof - few herbs, sun dried tomatoes, olives, tomato paste etc., and I'm easily looking at a £2/£3 loaf.

Expensive business making your own bread!

As others have said, your figures don't add up I'll add this to the existing thread to keep ideas together.

Penny. x

positivelymummy

just so you all know i did make my parmesan and red pesto bread (as i;d posted yesterday) i forgot that the red pesto was tomato and chilli!! i added about 1 and half table spoons, and about the same of parmesan, stuck it on dough setting, rolled out into thin long sticks, baked for 10 to 15 mins, and delicious, even the kids are eating them, and you get the chilli kick a couple of seconds after the first bite, but not too hot at all. next time, i will be added roast garlic to the dough!:D

simpywimpy

at what point did you add it to the mix?

champys

simpywimpy wrote: »

Another point though is that anyone who does day trips to France, the flour (farine) there is pennies and probably not something you would automatically think of looking for when doing a supermarket visit.
I buy bread flour there for making baguettes and they are gorgeous tasting.

You're right there simpywimpy, white flour is dirt cheap here (wholemeal another matter!), but watch what you are buying - the notion of 'strong' flour does not exist in France, and you should look out for anything that says 'type 55'. In fact that is the cheapest. But better not to buy the slightly more expensive type 45 and lower numbers as your results for bread will not be so good. I took a while to find that out once I moved here...... The type 55 is usually somewhere on the very bottom shelf where you will not always spot it so easily! French bread mixes (e.g. Francine brand) cost a fortune and are best avoided.

positivelymummy

simpywimpy wrote: »

at what point did you add it to the mix?

if you mean the pesto and parmesan, i added it at the beginning with everything else, and i used a bit less oil in my recipe as pesto is heavy with oil, i stuck it in the BM and switched onto dough so it mixes it all for me!

phizzimum

jacand wrote: »

Did you know you can get fresh yeast free from the instore bakery at most supermarkets. I know in breadmakers they advise to use dried yeast, but when your making your own without breadmaker it's great.

I've been reading about this for years but I've still not been brave enough to ask for it.