Can someone tell the advantages of making your own bread ..

[MeandEva]

I read many times on here of people making their own bread. It is something I hadnt considered doing before.

Is it easier?
Is it healthier?
Does it work out cheaper in the long run?

i have a panasonic.

best thing about it - peversely - is the spontaneity . I have bread mix packets in the cupboard. If someone calls to say they're coming round for lunch/dinner with us, I can get fresh lovely bread ready without needing to drag kids to the shop. Fresh bread makes any old slop and scrapings presentable. Likewise with picnics - can't go far wrong when you've brought fresh bread. Stopping in tescos for fresh bread on the way always ends up with lots of extras being bought.

main down side is slicing!

It's v. good for making 'posh' bread. i do a great rosemary foccacia with rosemary from the garden. Costs me about 50p for what would cost ££ in shops. (At the risk of being repetitive) if someone phones to invite us round, I'll sometimes knock out a 'special' bread as a gift. Cheap, no going out in a rush with the kids, and always gets appreciated and enjoyed,

fantactic for pizza. i also make pizza express style dough balls in my combination microwave.

Yes, I am now convinced and I will be purchasing a panasonic as soon as possible.

Thnaks

I made pizza dough in mine for the first time last night... small crisis on the catering front cos DH was goign to get something special from M&S but they'd totally sold out of good stuff when he got there - no particularly late- on NYE. So made good pizza with normal bread stuff plus a jar of Seeds of Change sauce, various veg and cheese... fab!

As to health its very good if, like my DH, you have to have low sodium diet because you can totally omit salt, despite what all the recipes say.

The advantage of making your own bread?

For when you wake up Boxing Day realising you have all the ingrediants for your starter of Goats Cheese Bruschetta that you are going to serve the 10 people you have for lunch - but no Ciabatta.

Easily knocked up in time and the best I've ever made. This year I didn't even bother buying it

in answer to op it tastes better and even if you buy a breadmaker it costs less after just a year you're basically past break even point. An added benefit if you bake by hand is that it can be very theraputic. A negative is that you eat loads more bread to start with because it tastes am much better

Yes, My mother and i both have a Panasonic. Oh, my sister has one too.

Biggest advantage of a bread machine for me is never running out of bread. I live miles from shops and have no spare freezer space, but I have a bulk sack of flour from a local mill and everything else is store cupboard ingredients. To survive on shop bread now I'd have to buy another freezer or make extra shopping trips all the time.

Multi-grains. Any old flour with loads of different seeds that produce the sort of bread they charge you £3 for at a Farmer's Market

Ciming in late, MeandEva. Thanks for starting this thread! I don't have a breadmaker. I whip mine up in the Cuisineart.

But, I do have a follow up question. Most recipes make 2 loaves. I find the second always goes stale. Is there a way to refrigerate or freeze the second loaf for the next day?

Oh yes I always freeze bread.

Quite often slice it first as well.

What's a cuisinart btw?

Cuisinart is a US food processor brand.

Just make mine in the Kitchen Aid using the bread hook. Can do it without thinking now - 500g flour, 1tsp yeast, 1 tsp salt, 300ml warm water. So many nice flours out there, Waitrose do a lovely multigrain organic. And as others have said, I know what goes in it (as I've just proved !)

Had never really got on with bread in this country (too flabby) - after years of looking for one I liked the problem is now solved!

Easy way to whip up pizza for the dcs without additives, too. I've got a thing about palm oil - on health and environmental grounds - hate the way its in everything! Making your own saves you peering at labels in the bakery aisle!

it is v easy to make rolls (you can even prove them in the microwave) and yes, the panasonic has a 13 hour timer. I heart the bread machine! I find it marvellous with the girls. I keep a few premixes in as well, which obviously don't have all the benefits of making from scratch, but are useful stand bys (my machine does a rapid bake in 1 hr 55)

loads cheaper. Bread is too expensive and rubbish in the shops unless you spend even more on the good stuff

Definitely cheaper and healthier and you know exactly what's going in the bread. (Food sensitivities in our family too.)

We also have a Panasonic. If using recipes from booklet with the machine, can omit most or all of the salt and all of the milk powder unless making something special like brioche or panettone. I also recommend 'Fresh Bread in the Morning' which has lots of inspiring recipes and some info about what the different ingredients are there for. Can have fun making different recipes although we have our old favourites I turn out regularly.

Love making pizza dough in it. Kif, wd like your instructions for dough balls. I did them in the oven last time and the feedback was 'they weren't the same as at Pizza Express'.

just moved to the US & comparing the price of everything obsessively ...

a loaf of nice bread (not pre-package, which is inedible here) is about $3 to $7, more if you get something fancy with bits in.

a pack of flour cost $4, and I use a bout 5% of the pack for one loaf. there's butter to go in, but other ingredients, e.g. salt & yeast are less than a penny each. there's the use of electricity of course, but a 'home made' much nicer loaf costs about 50 cents (30 pence) total. if i bought sunflower seeds etc, it would add just a few pennies.

don't buy silly little packets of 'just add water' flour mixes - hugely over priced. buy a decent make of bread flour, as big as you can store.

a loaf only lasts a couple of days here, but i make bread about twice a week, and you can live without it (still not a good idea to eat loads, even home made). it's healthier, as it doesn't have double or treble thte amount of yeast, just to get a 'quick rise' (how supermarkets manage to churn it out so fast) and it has minimal sugar & salt in.

So, each week, I save approx. 5 UK pounds (equivalent)on the cost of bread. which means my breadmaker paid for itself less than 6 months after we bought it, 3 years ago.

oh, and dd is incredibly fussy eater, but LOVES wholemeal bread.

You all have convinced me. I'm esp/ looking forward to waking up to the nice fresh smell of bread in the mornings!

Seven dollars for a chuffin' loaf of bread, kickassangel????

Do the peasants all have to eat cake over there??

Good bread is extortionate in the US, no kidding. You can get sweet, awful plastic stuff - but life is really too short.

cake is way cheaper!!

for some reason french batons & italian style bread (which is palin white to you & me) is cheaper, but you have to look carefully when you pick it up - a fairly standard looking loaf is eaily $7 around the bakery section.

now that we've set the breadmaker up on the transformer, we can have yummy home made.

meandeva - we have a panasonic that puts 'bits' in from the top on a timer. it means you get set it up & wake up to lovely cinnamon & raisin bread in the morning. yum, yum!

i don't understnad why bread has gone up so much in price, but flour hasn't? if wheat has got more expensive, surely everything would get more expensive?

Does anyone have a recipe for onion bread that works? I just had some in a cafe and it was just delicious!

I make bread using the non-knead method and I make 2 loaves at a time (one for the freezer), saving time and fuel. This method is great if you are short of time! The loaves always rise well and have a good texture. It keeps reasonably well for up to 3 days as it's quite moist (if you were to knead it you would need to add less water as it would be too sticky).

Non-knead bread:
1 1lb bread flour (white or brown)
1 tsp instant yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
3/4 pt warm water
Greased 2 lb loaf tin

Mix all ingredients together well. Add water and mix to form a soft dough. When all water is incorporated, transfer dough to greased loaf tin. Leave for 1 hour at room temperature. Preheat oven to Gas mark 7 (sorry don't do electric!). Bake for 30-40 mins on the second shelf from the top.

To save even more time I make up a mixture of 2 0z each of the sugar, salt and yeast and store in a jar in the fridge. I then add 3 tsp of the mixture to each loaf.