Keeping baking cheap except for butter costs!

[Bakingnovice]

I've got to a point where 90% of snacks in our house are now baked. Biscuits buns for lunchboxes and cake at the weekend. In fact the family no longer like shop bought stuff. I love it and have found it very rewarding. However it's hard to keep the cost down and ensure its cost effective for us. The cost of flour and sugar is not too bad. But I find that butter is very expensive. I tend to make less flapjacks now as although they taste better than shop ones, the cost of the oats seeds syrup and butter racks up.

How do I keep up with my baking without spending too much? Do you think I should just use something cheaper like stork?

Shop at Aldi. Butter is 99p a pack and flour is about 50p for a big bag.

Tesco has regular(ish) 3 for 2s on baking products - I stock up on chocolate chips and vanilla essence then. And the own brand value chocolate for about 35p is just as good in biscuits as 'proper' chocolate.

I also get my eggs from a neighbour for £2 a dozen; much nicer than supermarket ones, and definitely free range!

I froze butter after reading you could on mn. I couldn't wait for it to defrost so melted it and added it to the sugar, made a lovely sponge.

DreamingI havent done biscuits with it-only do cakes,traybakes,scones,muffins usually.Mary Berry's baking bible says that the spreads are fine as long as they are no less than 59%fat but to use butter for biscuits as it gives a more buttery/biscuity flavour.

Aldi do butter for about 80p!

I can taste when cakes don't have butter in them...I mean I'd not say it to you if you baked for me, but it does taste different.

Stork is fine in cakes and basic pastry or use a mix of the two.

Sainsbo's brand oats are fine and a tin of golden syrup is pretty cheap.

Sainsbo's Basics dark chocolate has just gone up to a (massive!) 33p a bar. It's excellent. Dp is even happy to eat it just as chocolate tbh.

I often add a big dollop of Sainsbo's natural yoghurt (about 65p) to chocolate sponge cakes to make them a bit less sweet - makes them nice and moist too.

Recipe for cheese oatcakes please, Maldives?

A spot of oil works just fine in bread.
Recipes that use less egg often use some milk plus baking powder and are worth looking out for. Buttermilk (cheap) or yoghurt plus bicarb makes things rise very well-think American pancakes.