MoneySaving Bake Off - how do you save money on ingredients?

nosuperwoman · 6 September 2018 at 8:56AM

I can vouch for the quality of Lidl cocoa. I once started measuring ingredients for brownies using Bourneville cocoa when I didn't have enough I opened the Lidl pack. The difference in darkness smell and taste was obvious, Bournville was very inferior. I topped it out (for something later needing less taste) and went with Lidl all the way. delish!

vanessa742 · 12 September 2018 at 2:49PM

Disappointed that you would recommend using caged eggs instead of Free Range

PasturesNew · 12 September 2018 at 4:24PM

vanessa742 wrote: »

Disappointed that you would recommend using caged eggs instead of Free Range

Because the post is about saving money .... not anything else.

suki1964 · 12 September 2018 at 5:19PM

I wish our Lidl did bread flour but it doesnt even though I always ask for it

Lidl plain and self raising flour is grand, as is the corn flour

The cooking chocolate blocks is very good as is the cocoa powder, condensed milk, golden syrup. Their brown sugars are very well priced

I never buy caster sugar , I just use ordinary sugar and whizz it in the blender or FP till fine, Ive even made icing sugar that way instead of buying a pack when Ive only needed a little

Poundland, B&M and Home bargains are my go to places for the little extras, the cake cases, icing bags, cake boxes, cake boards, flavourings, colourings etc

For Butter - lidl, £2.54 a pound. I use their baking fat as well and Tesco or Sainsburys Value ranges lard does the trick ( Im not a vegetarian so don't hunt out trex )

Suet ive picked up in some surprising places, Marks were discontinuing it and I got a load of boxes for 25p

Its also worth looking in the reduced sections of the supermarkets, I picked up gram flour for 50p in my local Tesco as its not a big seller and the same for 00 flour ( unfortunately they now no longer stock either )

robin58 · 12 September 2018 at 6:34PM

Bump. bump. Offer ends tonight.

robin58 wrote: »

If you have a Topcashback account, they are via thier instore groceries account section, offering money off baking basic items.

20p off icing sugar 500g.
15p off cake casings, any type.
15p off Baking chocolate 150g, any type.
10p off plain flour 500g.
10p off sponge mix, any flavour.

Cashback available until 11.59pm 12th September. Once only for each item.

Added bonus you can submit a receipt(s) from any retailer, not just the big supermarkets.

wort · 13 September 2018 at 7:49AM

I've had whitWorth nuts and seeds in pound land. :j

[Deleted User] · 14 September 2018 at 8:48AM

vanessa742 wrote: »

Disappointed that you would recommend using caged eggs instead of Free Range

We were discussing the virtues of free range and indoor reared animals the other night in the pub.Now I am not an 'animal rights' person at all, and with my 'sensible hat' on I said (not unreasonably I thought ) that advertising sales techniques are such that the words 'free range' are extremely misleading.

One of my opponents said airily 'well if you can eat an egg or chicken thats not been raised in a good environment it says how much you think of animal welfare'.

My reply was 'I eat what I can afford to buy', and the idea that an egg that has come from a free range bird is one that has been fed from the kitchen door in a farmyard by a rosy cheeked farmers wife throwing handfuls of corn in the air is a load of old rubbish.

This country now has an enormous food industry and eggs and chickens make up a large part of it .

As someone who has lived through rationing and the severe post war austerity of the 1950s Chickens back then were only eaten by ordinary folk on Christmas Day I certainly never tasted a turkey until I was in my late teens and married In our house as a child we had like a lot of people several chickens that we kept for the eggs and eventually we ate them We grew up knowing they were raised to be eaten.

Today with larger populations and less land around chicken has become part of our staple diets, and there really isn't either enough land ,nor rosy cheeked farmers wives with the time or energy to be raising chickens like this

A harassed mum living with several children to feed, on possibly a low income, cannot afford to be to 'precious ' about where her kids next meal comes from, or if the chicken has lived a happy and fulfilled life, so caged or free range it all comes down to price and the market fixes the price.

In a perfect world we would all be eating organic food and cooking free range or grass fed meat to our families ,but sadly we don't live in a perfect world and not buying caged hens eggs won't stop them being produced. I would bet the farm on the fact that most mass produced food in the shops are using caged hens eggs to make the cakes and goodies that you buy
I eat as healthily as I can afford to but a chicken is still a dead chicken whether its led 'the good life' or not

British farmers are battling to feed us all and do their best for their animals. Its to their advantage to produce the best they can with what they have, as I said its just not a perfect world

JackieO

t14cy_t · 14 September 2018 at 4:13PM

all my chickens are rescued ex battery hens. I buy them from the british hen welfare for a £5 each donation, usually I buy 12 at a time. they are a real pleasure to see everyday, each day getting used to the finer things in life!!! they eat all my scraps and most of the weeds too!! all for corn and pellets which I buy locally. the eggs are really rich as they have such a varied diet. I supply the local pub with any surplus eggs which they sell on to their locals and money raised goes to local charities. friends, family and neighbours are also readily supplied!! the chooks are worth every penny!!! I scour the reduced section for any meat and poultry which is either grass/corn fed/ british/ organic there is a big difference in taste in my opinion.

PollyWollyDoodle · 14 September 2018 at 8:14PM

I once did a rough calculation (and I really wish I'd kept it because I can't be bothered to do it again!) of how much land would be needed if all eggs in this country were free range. We eat an enormous amount of eggs in the UK both in original format and in prepared dishes, baked goods and so on. If they were all produced in "free range" conditions there would not be enough land left for farming. The inevitable result would be that eggs would be imported, probably from China or other places where welfare conditions are much worse.

Jackie O is quite right in saying that "free range" does not mean what we would like to think. It means that hens must have access to the outdoors, but many of them will live their entire life indoors. I keep hens myself, they are kept in an aviary most of the time because they would be fox food otherwise, and I could not classify them as free range. However, they produce lovely eggs which taste and look much better than any you can buy.

Principles are a luxury, and if you are struggling to get by then you buy what you can afford.

suki1964 · 14 September 2018 at 9:07PM

My hens eggs I sell as Happy Hens eggs as whilst they cant free range, they have access at all times to our garden and the field behind us with trees to perch in and shelter under and lots of dry soil to bath in, as well as freedom to go in and out of their coop as they like

However I feed them a commercial feed to ensure they are getting what they need

I couldn't sell my hens eggs at the same price as supermarkets. I don't make any profit, what I have available to sell only covers their feed and some of their sundry costs

If I was on a tight budget and needed to ensure my family were well fed, I would be buying eggs as cheaply as possible and I wouldn't worry about buying caged hens eggs

I don't understand why people get their knickers in a twist about battery hens whilst still drinking milk and eating bacon

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MoneySaving Bake Off - how do you save money on ingredients?

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