It costs more to make your own bread?

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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'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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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

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

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

Just coming back to this after asking AI about pre heating my pot, it says that AFTER pre heating the oven leave the pot in for 30-60 mins

Thats the same was what Ive seen and read on youtube.

Thats a long time!

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 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

@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.

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.

@Oriundaits the method used by Elaine Boddy.

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.