It costs more to make your own bread?

[soupyspoon]

Im not sure if this is true and there are different ways of making bread which might be cheaper. I use an oven and a 'no knead' method which means putting the oven on for a very long time.

I think this is costing me more than a loaf of bread might do? Or at least the same

Oven goes on for 40 mins at 240 degrees, then bread goes in for about the same time, perhaps a little more. So nearly 1.5hrs of really high heat.

The ingredients probably dont cost that much, I get the flour and yeast in Aldi.

I think in a breadmaker it must be cheap as chips

Or if you only had the oven on a shorter time for properly made bread.

I'd always assumed the 40 mins was the time it needed to heat the Dutch oven as it is so heavy. But maybe it is the time for the bread to rise after it has been shaped?

I've made this loaf without a Dutch oven using a tray of water in the bottom of the oven to make the steamy environment. I found the instructions in the footnotes of a recipe somewhere.

I have an old, shit gas oven and it never gets to 240C. My Dutch oven bread tends to have a very thick crust. Anyone know why?

I used a bread maker throughout the packed lunch years and it was vastly cheaper than supermarket bread.

Can you bake bread in an air fryer?

Well yes but only because I make gluten free and the best flour is caputo fioreglut which costs about £9 per kg. But it’s amazing!

I bake mine in a Dutch oven at 300 (I know! But it’s sourdough and it works, fantastic rise every time) and it only takes 20 mins to preheat, I don’t understand why yours would need 40 mins.

Getting sidetracked but how is anyone baking bread at 180?? That’s gentle reheating as far as I’m concerned

Personally I'd use the time heating the oven/pot to cook something else, so the oven isn't wasted. I use to cook multiple loaves and cakes at the same time so that I could make best use of the oven. I'd then freeze them all cut into small pieces.

Thanks OP. Have you ever tried it with gluten free flour?

I stopped using a breadmaker as the fresh bread was so delicious that the entire loaf would be gone within a few hours of being made (that's with the family sharing, not just me). So we all ate too much bread and put on too much weight. It's easier to resist temptation with bland pappy shop-bought bread.

But if you shell out for a breadmaker you have to account for that in the cost too? It's fine if you make a loaf a day and the breadmaker works for 10 years before it breaks and the bread is amazing. Breadmaker is definitely a fooly purchase if you use it once in a blue moon and it doesn't even make great bread.... I throw the bread in when the oven is already hot from doing other things. Maybe try and time your cooking of bread around other baking / meal prep so that the thermonuclear heat isn't wasted!

No not at all. I LIVED my bread maker. Just put the ingredients in, in order & the paddled mixed it. Beautiful bread, the avocado and cheese loaf was amazing too!

but I eat low carb now to avoid taking medication for diabetes, so I very reluctantly gave it to my friend 🥹

@Ironfloor269 I started out with a Panasonic bread maker and the machine did everything from kneading to baking but I didn't like the hole from it baking around the paddle. I used it to combine all ingredients including seeds, then let it knead the bread then I turned it out shaped it, put it into a loaf tin, covered it until it rose a bit then baked it. I am going back at least 15 years but I didn't knead it.

I can't knead bread, it hurts my hands and the loaves/rolls I make now are more of a pull up, stretch then fold over x 3 times and I do this every 30 minutes three times. I make a poolish the day before. My oven is 240 and I have a steel tray in there to bake on but I make 8 small baguettes style rolls or 2 loaves so I make double what OP makes so the cost of the oven is technically halved. Sometimes I cook them for less time to make part baked ones and freeze them. My bread flour is £1.22 for a 1.5kg and I use 1kg per batch at 81p per kilo. Yeast, salt and water. Nothing else.

A normal loaf of bread can be as cheap at 75p but it has a lot of preservatives and enhancers in. A nice loaf will cost over £2 now but if you went to a bakery and bought a freshly made loaf it would more likely be double that. I like making my own.

300 on my oven is the self clean, when it turns everything to ash.

Are you talking c or f?

I pay £1 for strong bread flour and use my sourdough starter.

The oven is occasionally used strategically using sourdough discard (English muffins/cookies etc)

I don't think it's more expensive, but regardless it's a completely different product

ETA: that's for TWO loaves, as I bake 500g loaves.

I use a bread maker. It kneads, heats for the rises, and bakes. You check it during the knead and see if the dough ball looks like it should and adjust accordingly. You have to add ingredients in the order specified, usually liquids first then dry with yeast on top. The breads I make with it are nice and light. I add a little more water if I'm doing something like whole wheat or rye. I also might add some vital wheat gluten, that helps the bread not be dense. I also use good quality flours, it really does make for better taste and texture. I make a loaf or two a week.

In the winter I might just use it for kneading and bake in the oven.

Amusingly, I hauled my breadmaker out this morning - I think it's the change in weather and I just want lovely fresh bread. We eat a lot of high qualiy sourdough so I won't be abandoning that at all, but I do like it when I'm using the breadmaker for a fluffy loaf a couple of times a week. Especially as DD, who has intolerances and is fussy, is FINALLY starting to eat bread again but currently only the crappy Hovis stuff so if I can switch her to lovely home baked bread, huge win.

I agree with other posters - you shouldn't need 40 minutes to heat up a cast iron pot. I would think 20 would be fine, especialyl ifyou put it in when you turned the oven on.

Maybe this is the year I experiment with different breads in the breadmaker!

c! I don’t know if it actually gets to 300 in there but it is pretty hot when you open the door. I can’t make bread when there’s a heatwave 😂

Weird, mine genuinely doesn't go up to 300 except on the cleaning mode or the grill.

Also, you said how are people cooking at 180 - I cook everything at 180: roasts, tray bakes, casserole, flapjacks, cheesecake - everything!

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".

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 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!

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

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.

Nothing wrong with a thick crust, I think they're meant to have one arent they?

I watched so many youtube videos and most of them said 30 to 40 mins to bring the casserole pot up to temperature, so thats what Ive been doing

I read that you can but you would have to play around with amounts and sizes

I havent but would be interested to hear if others have done this method, I imagine perhaps more yeast would be needed (kneaded)

Its a good idea if you have oven things, but I genuinely cant remember the last time we used the oven like that.

Im interested to see if Im overdoing the pre heat though I put the pot in right at the start, so perhaps only 20 mins or 30 mins? Its a massively thick pot though and Im not actually confident of my oven being as hot as it says

Also, it works the bread comes out beautiful so I dont want to mess with whats working.