Stockists for ingredients

Sarahspangles

If you have either molasses or treacle in the cupboard you can make an approximation of most expensive ‘brown’ sugars. Food producers do - they add molasses back into granulated or caster sugar to make soft brown sugar or muscovado sugar. The only one you can’t replicate is Demerara.

I buy golden caster as a base, 1kg at a time. Although it’s more expensive than white granulated sugar, it’s unrefined. I buy molasses for bread making and/or have treacle in for parkin. With most recipes you can halve the sugar (I do this for health reasons) and being able to taste the molasses makes this less noticeable.

What I don’t bulk buy is flour. I helped a friend deal with a flour weevil infestation so I know they can get out of/into plastic storage containers and can migrate from cupboard to cupboard.

Christianne1957

Our local Council run park has "community" raised beds filled with herbs (sage, mint, rosemary, lemon balm etc) that are free for the picking. I get a few sprigs of whatever is in season/profusion every week when I do Parkrun as they are nice for cooking & making homemade herbal teas.

For baking basics, I buy Aldi, Lidl & own brand products - when I run out of homemade jam, I buy the "Everyday Essentials" strawberry jam from Aldi at 45p/454g - it's not as visually appealing as the more expensive brands but it's full of flavour & ideal for jam tarts etc.

I bake with "own brand" baking blocks/spreads rather than butter as butter (undeniably gorgeous as it is) is simply not affordable on my budget - still get good results and no complaints from the family!

I avoid the boxed cake/pancake/pastry mixes unless they are hugely discounted

purpleivy

Sarahspangles said:

I use Ocado, I skim for ‘offers on favourites’ for my monthly big shop, and stock up if there is one.

Some supermarkets sell mixed size eggs, if you don’t mind looking up how much a medium/large egg should weigh. I have a recipe that needs 9 eggs for 2 cakes but it can vary from 8 to 10 depending on the size of the egg.

I 'skim' for Flash Sales too! Almost all our meat is purchased like this.  If it's not there and I don't have it stashed in the freezer we don't have it!

purpleivy

Cherryfudge said:

We use Lidl a lot, but you can also make savings by checking your recipe for possible swaps. For instance, if it says caster sugar, you can use granulated. Self raising flour isn't necessary - you can use plain if you add baking powder (ratios are available online and sometimes on the baking powder tub but if in doubt I use a rounded tsp). I also went through a phase of making my own chocolate drops but it took time and I don't use them often so that went by the wayside!

During the war some ingredients were scarce or unobtainable so recipes became lower sugar and often fruit or veg ended up in cakes, which we still see in terms of things like carrot cake or beetroot brownies, both of which can be delicious - so if you're interested in experimenting, this might be a way to go.

A quick whizz in the food processor makes caster from Granulated very easily. 

drspouse

I always buy medium eggs - cheaper, and doesn't seem to make a difference to the mix. They are supposed to be more hen friendly too.