Is homemade bread REALLY cheaper?

McKneff

It wasnt cheaper in my house because the bread was so nice the family were eating 3 times as much.:eek:

mmmsnow

hulahoop09 wrote: »

Fab thank you! I didnt know bread had milk in, my 7 month old is dairy and egg intolerant so we cant use so many things!!!

You can use olive oil (or any oil really) instead of butter and the milk powder is optional. My bread only has flour, yeast, salt, sugar, water and olive spread in it.

Elisheba

We only use the breadmaker, and never use milk powder or marg, only bread flour, Dove's yeast, salt, sugar, water and olive oil. I would say it works out a lot cheaper than buying fancy loaves, and you can make interesting bread quite easily. It may be cheaper than value loaves, but you end up cutting the slices quite thick so it might not be. However it does save a fortune on pizzas, and things like that.
I picked up a secondhand book called 'Bread in the Morning' with really simple and easy recipes in it. It really is the ebst breadmaker recipe book I have seen (although I would add a teaspoon or two of sugar, and a dash of olive oil to the basic white loaf even if they don't)

andygb

Why do many people assume that you need to buy a breadmaker to make bread?
I have been making bread for nearly ten years now, and have never felt the urge to buy a breadmaker. My "kit" comprises two very large plastic bowls (used for mixing and proving), two baking trays and our oven.
It takes half an hour to prepare the mix and knead it, leave it alone for hours to days if you wish, then knock back, and in a couple of hours time it will be ready for cooking, which normally takes around 30 minutes per loaf.

bearcub

I've never had much success with handmade bread, so I bought a Morphy Richards BM, as recommended by my daughter. It cost just under £40, and is one of the best things we've ever bought in our 38 years of marriage. The bread is unfailingly tasty (except when I forgot to put the yeast in!:o), and the cost is low, as we buy 'loose' local flour. We don't eat much more than we've ever done and, when we do have some go a bit stale, it makes the most wonderful bread and butter pud. On my daughter's recommendation, we've never put oil or milk in our bread, and we've lowered the amount of salt and sugar stated in the recipe book.

Farway

andygb wrote: »

Why do many people assume that you need to buy a breadmaker to make bread?

Time & convenience Andy, same as using a washing machine or dishwasher

It takes 5 minutes to measure the ingredients into a bread maker, press go and walk away and upon return remove a nice loaf of bread. So by your numbers, that is a least 25 minutes of "my time" gained by using a machine

I could stand a the sink and hand wash my sheets, shirts etc, but I do not. I could have washing up kit of a bowl etc but find life much easier to just use a machine do it whilst I get on with something else

Why have a dog & bark yourself?

Toomuchdebt

Think I need to get my bread maker out once the kids have eaten the bread from the freezer

bearcub

I bought our BM not to save money, but simply because I was fed up with buying supermarket bread that was mostly indifferent, at best, in taste and quality. We have a very good local baker, but the bakery is at the far end of our long drawn out village. Since we have to see to the horses, in the opposite direction, early every morning, by the time we get back to the village, most of the bread is gone. It just made sense to get a BM, instead of spending overmuch on bland bread, when we could have good stuff at lower cost.

And, yes, the BM saves us time. Retired we may be, but we're still busy people, busy doing things we want to do - and I hate cooking!

hermum

My breadmaker is one gadget I wouldn't want to be without. The recipe that came with mine doesn't have milk powder in & it makes a lovely loaf.
I bought mone on ebay for about £2, the seller had bought & never used it. It was originally quite a cheap one but bakes better than my previous Morphy Richards.

BitterAndTwisted

Apart from the cost of the ingredients and the leccy my second-hand bread-maker is saving me a fortune. It used to cost me £1.35 each way on the bus to go and buy it. Often I did without as I absolutely refuse to buy that sweaty bread in plastic bags because it's not actually bread and is only really suitable for making toast.

My bread-maker cost me only fifteen quid in a charity shop and the wholemeal flour I'm currently using was £1.49 for ten kilos. I don't use good olive oil just the cheapest vegetable oils I can find. Cheap as chips and much more delicious. What is turning out a bit pricey is all the sunflower and pumpkin seeds I've been using