Slowcooker or breadmaker cheaper to run

ariarnia

our every week bread has four ingredients and the only real cost is the two and 1/2 cups of flour as ive got a load of live yeast in the freezer free from the supermarket. i'd guess it costs about 30p a loaf (not including cooking energy) as we bought a load of alison flour at about a quid a bag. i use a no kneed recipie so only the baking and washing up costs energy. never got on with bread makers as i don't like the hole in the bottom and i think if you're going to pull it out just for the dough then may as well do no kneed overnight and save having to wash the pan. 

supermarket bread has 20 odd ingredients and its mostly sugar and air thanks to the way they force the fermentation. its got its palce but its like sausage rolls or cake. not something i would want me or my family to eat reguarly.  bread isn't really something i like us to eat every day and supermarket break is even more of a 'treat' for beach bbq rolls or bacon butties where you can;'t taste the bread anyway. 

every has their choice and priorities but if i couldn't bake and there was a burning need for bread then i'd rather buy artisan bread and support a local business than just pick up any old whatever from the supermarket. 

EssexHebridean

wittynamegoeshere said:

I would think that 95%+ of the population would never pay anything like £3-5 for a loaf of bread so that's something of an enthusiastic justification.

It's a luxury, not money saving.  If you think it's worthwhile then great, perhaps good value if compared against the "Saw You Coming" artisan bread shop that most people definitely wouldn't bother with.  But it's probably not something for us plebs who just want something to make a Monster Munch sandwich with.

 Last time I worked it out, our regular white loaf costs us under 50p a time even if we add a handful of mixed seeds into the mix, a batch of 8 rolls slightly less in terms of the breadmaker portion but with the added cost of the oven for baking. A basic white value loaf right now is 39p I think? As I said earlier - all our previous breadmakers became cost neutral surprisingly fast - the first one was in under 18 months IIRC - there’s really little reason to suggest that they are in some way “only for the wealthy” - indeed I’d definitely not group us into that category! We DO like nice tasting bread though, and we also like bread that lasts well, tastes good AND comes in cheaper than we can buy in the supermarket. Would we buy a “value” loaf? No - neither the flavour or the texture is great in my view, and there really is only pennies difference in the cost now too.  Ultimately it comes down to us all having our line in the sand about what we can afford to, and are prepared to pay for, don’t we.  I would occasionally pay more for - for example  - a good sourdough loaf or similar, but being able to produce something fresh and tasty in a couple of hours at home means I’m far less inclined to do so. Is a breadmaker moneysaving? Absolutely - in our experience. 

QrizB

I need to apologise to the OP for introducing the phrase "artisanal bakery" in the fifth reply to this thread. Ever since then we've mostly ignored the original question!

maisie_cat

wittynamegoeshere said:

It's probably cheaper to buy a loaf rather than pay for the flour and power.

And that's after ignoring the cost of buying the machine.

This of course ignores whether it's better than bought bread, which it may or may not be.  Also it's fresher.

Not if you want to compare like with like, our 1kg loaf costs £1.20 including electricity of 0.45kWh, a similar in Tesco is 800g for £1.20.
To make in my slow cooker I'd have to make the dough first, prove, punch and then prove & cook although the slow cook programme in mine for 4 hours is 0.33kWh I'm sure I could be bothered with all that to save 6.5p.

ariarnia

i know its off topic but this is the method (and mostly the recipie) we use. it was the original video i found about 9 or 10 years ago and have tweaked it a little since (reducing the salt for our taste and using fresh yeast so take a little water and flour from the amounts to start the yeast of in a separate cup). mix it in the evening and bake it in the morning. bread never lasts long enough to go stale. the same recipe makes a loaf or rolls or a plat or whatever. a little oil makes passable home made pizza or calsone doughe

https://youtu.be/WVwrTAJtSNk

oh i also dont preheat for half an hour because i use the air fryer to bake the loaf. 

Spoonie_Turtle

ariarnia said:

oh i also dont preheat for half an hour because i use the air fryer to bake the loaf. 

What kind of airfryer do you have that's suitable for baking bread?

ariarnia

ive got this one 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07N8QY3YH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title

fits 2lb loaf baking tin or a 8 inch round cake tin 

lots of recipes in the book that comes with it (including a banana bread i keep meaning to try) but i cook ours for 20 mins at 160 with foil on top then take the foil off and 5 to give it a good crust. rolls take about 18 mins total. if i want a thicker crust i'll flip it half way through and then back to brown the top at the end but that tends to mean the loaf isn't as tall when finished and can have a flat top and bottom if that makes sense? so the slices are kind of pitta bread shaped. 

when we first got the air fryer i wasn't sure but found this and used it as a start for experimenting. https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/53940/air-fryer

Spoonie_Turtle

Fascinating, thanks!  Is the element exposed inside?  I see people cooking sausages in some of the review photos but ours says not to, we weren't sure if there was a different type or if people just cooked them anyway.

ariarnia

erm... dunno. id have to turn it over to check. and its downstairs. and i'm lazy. but if i remember tomorrow i will. basically the heat comes from the top and there's also a fan and the computer bit in the top. it doesn't cook like a grill if thats what you mean. it heats the whole space not only directionally from the top. but the top does cook more (which is why the foil just to stop it burning and to stop the crust from forming to soon which would make the bread flat and dense. had a few like that before i figured out the timing for my recipie and fryer.

i really want a small dutch oven to fit as i think that would be great. ive seen some people use two bread tins together with bulldog clips but theres not enough space around the side on mine to try it. the only covered bread tins the right size i can find are far too expensive for a experiment. 

oh. and we sometimes cook sausages in ours. they cook all the way but are better if you turn them to brown both sides evenly. or youve got a choice between top good and bottom white or top over brown and bottom good. or foil i guess. but turning is easier. 

what type have you got that you shouldn't cook sausages in?

Spoonie_Turtle

ariarnia said:

what type have you got that you shouldn't cook sausages in?

It's a Cook's Essentials one, looks very similar to the one you've linked although I'm not sure on size; I'd hazard a guess that it might be 4l.  The fan is above the element in the top.  Mum thinks the recommendation is so oil doesn't splatter the element.  Maybe a larger - maybe specifically deeper - tray is needed to cook oily stuff safely?  Not sure.