It costs more to make your own bread?

That doesn’t really matter to me, it’s more about the ingredients. No additives and preservatives is how we like to eat as much as possible.

@Oriundaits the method used by Elaine Boddy.

Yes, one of the bread blogs I read said they baked from a cold oven. I plan to try it next time. Effectively your bread continues to prove whilst oven is heating, this would work well with sourdough, where usually our bread is in fridge overnight, thus more solid/less likely to spread outwards.

@ShredderQueen

When I started out making sourdough I used a Dutch oven, but I gave up quite soon. It was just such a faff apart from anything else. I now just use a tray of water and a mister.

I don't use the grid shelf at all, and I put a baking sheet and a baking tray on the floor of the oven to heat up. The loaf goes on a sheet of reusable silicon baking foil, which can be slid onto the hot baking sheet. Boiling water goes in the tray, which is shoved to the back, then the bread on the tray in front. I do a last spray with the mister as I shut the door.

I have also started doing a secondary cut of the loaf after 5 minutes, just to make sure it opens up properly. Baking time is 25-30 minutes in total. This gives a nice golden crusty loaf. I'm not sure if I have any pics. I did make one loaf that looked disturbingly like The Donald once, so I may still have that, to give an idea is if you're interested.

I have a breadmaker but of course there is the upfront cost before you even start. It's not particularly cheap to make bread when all costs are added up, I generally put the breadmaker on on Sunday when it's BG half price electric time and freeze portions

I made a proper loaf yesterday as I couldn’t be bothered to go to the shops.
I’m not sure if it works out cheaper. The actual loaf is probably cheaper than the equivalent loaf we buy but our slices are thicker so we get less.
But the bread is also more filling and satisfying so maybe we eat less later because of it?

I have never made bread before, but I keep thinking I will need to try it, more for the reason of having nice fresh bread whenever it's needed because it just goes stale a few days after buying it. It would taste better too

I get 3 loaves from a bag of flour, I knead in my bread machine but cook in oven. Cost is £1.10 for flour (3 loaves) 50p for 8 sachets yeast 10p for yeast, sugar and oil. No idea how much electricity it costs but usually I bake at the same time as cooking dinner

You don’t actually need to preheat the oven for bread. .

I have a breadmaker, and I think the real cost saving is avoiding top up shops.
Nobody's walking out of the supermarket with just a £1 loaf, that’s why they put it at the back.

Interesting variations on the baking temp/time!

We do 10 mins at 220, then 20 mins at 160.

The prep couldn't be any simpler either. Whack ingredients in stand mixer with dough hook for 5 mins. Prove 1 hour. Bash out. Prove 30 mins more. Bake.

Start at 10am, fresh loaf ready by lunchtime. Hurray for WFH!

Haha no even on the dark crust setting it is very pale. But so good. I’m going to make cinnamon rolls with it this weekend and I’m very excited

https://wheatbythewayside.com/gluten-free-cinnamon-rolls-with-caputo-fioreglut/#recipe

Agree that caputo fioreglut makes the best gluten-free bread by a mile - but have you found a way to get the crust to colour? While it tastes decent, mine still comes out the bread maker a ghostly white. It's a bit eerie.

Do you use a dutch oven in the aga for your sourdough? Or open bake with steam?

@notallthosewhotravelarelost - I have been down a rabbit warren reading a fair bit about sourdough at the moment and I think you can reduce the thick crust by 1) adding steam - either using a dutch oven and misting before hand or adding a baking tray of water to the bottom of the oven. 2) By reducing the heat on the bottom by putting a baking tray on the shelf underneath the shelf you were cooking on iyswim.

However, another thing to maybe try if these don't work, is just turning your oven down a bit? My first 2 loaves were open baked and quite dark/crusty/thick - not the lovely light brown of all the photos I was seeing, so I turned it down a bit and it definitely helped.

I've been making my own bread for years and, like PPs point out, it isn't because it's cheaper but because it's better. I used to use a bread maker but now do it all by hand.

I make one yeasted loaf plus one sourdough each week. I also make other breads when needed kneaded - pittas, flatbreads, focaccia etc.

I bake in an Aga, so in effect that's cheaper than the bread maker as it's on all the time anyway.

When I was in school we were taught that if we are making bread or something similar to also cook something else at the same time eg put in a casserole etc. Still in that habit.

I bake my sourdough at 220 for 30 mins, then 180 for 10 minutes. I bake everything else at 180.

I make my own sourdough every weekend which costs me 85p a loaf – it's only flour, water and salt. Never factored in the cost of having the oven on for 40mins baking time though!

There are [;aces in Hong Kong that sell common bakery ingredients in small quantities - all precisely weighed out and sold per bag. For example, instead of buying a bag of flour that won't do well in this tropical climate, you can simply buy a small bag of 200g. This cuts waste and it's easier to gauge how much you really need. This extends to bakery chocolate, gelatin, types of sugar etc. If the UK did that it would cut food waste.
This is really cheap too. If you have an oven, it's a great way to bake or even without one it's a great way to cook.

I have a bread maker machine, and my smart meter stays green throughout the process, but it moves to orange the second I put the oven on, so I must be using less 'leccy! That and a 1.5 kilo of flour at £1.09 in Lidl/Aldi, a couple of quid for yeast gets me 3 loaves for less than the cost of 3 loaves of "plastic bread". These "artisanal" bakers are taking the p**s with their pricing, even if you take rent/rates into account. It's still bread produced by the "chorleywood method".