Is breadmaking in a conventional oven any cheaper

tiredandanxious

Is making my own bread and cooking it in my conventional oven any cheaper than buying shop bread?

Or would the electricity cost cancel it out?

I cant afford a breadmaker and i know they're quite cheap in some places but its just money i dont have to spare

Thanks for reading
xx:o

MRSMCAWBER

Hi there

I make my bread by hand now.. and its gorgeous - if i say so myself

Lidls bread flour is great and cheap, you can get free fresh yeast from some supermarkets,

my recipe is 300ml warm water
12g fresh yeast
1tsp sugar
500g bread flour and
3tsp salt
...it soo simple, and much more filling than shop bread and tastes much better... and for me its working out at about 20p a loaf plus gas..as i got my flour when it was on offer in Lidl
I would pick HM every time

squeaky

That's a sums question

I think I'm right in thinking that a large oven might use as much as 2.5kW.

That would be 2.5 units at whatever your supplier charges per hour for an hour's use.

(Not that it would be likely to be on all of the time)

Say ten minutes warm up time?

Then 20-30 minutes for a typical loaf.

So 1 to 1.5 units of power per loaf at your unit cost.

If yours costs 8p per kilowatt then it's 8 -12p per loaf.

You can do a more accurate calculation if you have your cooker's manual handy, or if you can find and read the data plate on the cooker (usually round the back) and then use the site linked below:-

http://www.ukpower.co.uk/running-costs-elec.asp


If you do this I'd really like to know the proper answer

tiredandanxious

thanks guys that great
my cooker instructions got lost many moons ago, when my dog,then a puppy decided it'd be good for bedding material and ripped it to bits lol

Thank you,my ds is going to be having fun this weekend lol

peabrain_2

I started with a breadmaker, sometimes it worked, sometimes I got bricks. I transferred to the oven which allowed me to let the bread rise, and if the room was a bit cool, just left it for longer.

The first recipies were from the breadmaker book. Too complicated. I wanted something really simple, now it's flour, water, yeast.

1-1/2lb flour
450ml water
1/2 sachet yeast

Put in other things if you want, but it's not necessary, not sugar, not salt.

This makes 2 large bun type loaves, and they don't last long enough to go stale.

To make a real luxury bread I put in sun dried tomatoes from https://www.countryproducts.co.uk. they are affordable from them.

Andy_Hamilton

From my calculations it's Much cheaper to make your own bread.

For my bread maker I use:
3rd of a bag of Lidl strong white flour - About 16p per loaf
Yeast (unitl I get it free from a supermarket) - about 6p per loaf
Salt, Sugar, butter and milk is well less than 5p per loaf
Electricity 0.3KWh's = 4.8p per loaf

Total price per loaf = Around 32p


Since I priced mine up I got free yeast from Asda making the cost per loaf 26p per loaf.

In comparison the same type of loaf is 69p but I select what goes in my bread.

If you are going to make it, make 3+ loaves to keep the cooking costs down. Slice the ones you are not going to eat and freeze it.

I bought a 3 year old breadmaker for £20 locally, It saved me that in the first week spending on impulse buys in the supermarket.

squeaky

Then you can reduce even further by using value plain flour at around 32p ber bag - so about 11p for flour per loaf.

Do the old trick of using water saved from boiling potatoes as your liquid, and it helps (because plain flour is slightly lower in gluten than strong flour) if you then bake it on the whole wheat program. This gives it more time to rise and to form the proper chains for nice bread.

Try it.

If you don't like the results just use the plain flour for ordinary baking

belfastgirl23

I tend to try to cook bread like this when I have the oven on anyway so at least you get 2 for 1 Especially on a Sunday when I make pizza I tend to also make scones, maybe some bread and a lasagna/casserole type thing for Monday's dinner which can go in the micro....

Worth thinking about what other cooking you can fit it around with, but even if you heat the oven from cold I think it's still cheaper than buying. And nicer.

culpepper

I used to do mine in the oven. 4 at a time and freeze the sliced loaves.
Not sure how expensive it works out that way. The good thing about freezing it sliced,is you can just remove a few slices for toast rather than a whole loaf. That used to do 4 of us for a week with toast at breakfast and sandwiches every lunch time.

destiny_star2006

i would be embarrased to go to asda and ask for yeast am v shy person so can you buy yeast in asda and the likes

destiny_star2006

MRSMCAWBER wrote: »

Hi there

I make my bread by hand now.. and its gorgeous - if i say so myself

Lidls bread flour is great and cheap, you can get free fresh yeast from some supermarkets,

my recipe is 300ml warm water
12g fresh yeast
1tsp sugar
500g bread flour and
3tsp salt
...it soo simple, and much more filling than shop bread and tastes much better... and for me its working out at about 20p a loaf plus gas..as i got my flour when it was on offer in Lidl
I would pick HM every time

Could you please gimme a step by step guide on this as ive never made read before thanks