This is another in my series on saving money on groceries while improving your dining experience. 

As inflation and the Trump tariff taxes continue to push up prices, it makes sense to find ways to stretch your food dollars.  Making your own bread is not only less expensive than store-bought bread, but it also tastes better and can be customized to your needs. Like thicker or thinner slices?  No problem., Sick of the outrageous prices of gluten-free bread?  Make your own. Desire a specialty bread for a special meal?  Absolutely!

My wife made a run to the grocery store and was happy that Ezekiel Bread had been restocked.  However, she wasn’t pleased when she realized that a small loaf was now ten dollars. She didn’t buy the loaf.

Bread is the staple of life, and just about every culture has some form of bread.  Bread is considered a subsistence food that provides the calories, vitamins, minerals, protein, and fiber necessary for life.  

When I was growing up, my mother bought “Silvercup” bread, which was one step above “Wonder Bread.”  It was good for sandwiches, but likely not the best in terms of nutrition.  We also bought bread from our neighborhood bakery. What a difference that bread was.  I have fond memories of walking into that place and being welcomed by the scent of freshly baked bread.  I remember, with fascination, the clerk taking a fresh loaf, pushing it through a slicing machine, and then deftly shoving it into a waxed bag.  That bread was the best.

My grandmother made most of her family’s bread, and it was delicious.  She made a light rye bread that was baked into a large, round loaf.  She didn’t buy yeast; instead, she would seed a new batch of dough with a portion of the dough she had saved from the week before.  I can’t imagine that she measured anything; she just knew what to do after baking thousands of loaves of bread by hand. Making bread was part of her life, and I’m sure it occupied at least one whole day of her week.

My mom would make yeasted bakery, but I don’t recall her making bread.  Most of her yeast bakes consisted of various filled coffee cakes, which we called kolaches, not to be confused with those delicious fruit-filled cookies called Kolacky.  

I’m not sure exactly when I made my first loaf of bread, but I started to make it regularly during my residency.  I was divorced at that time, and one of the few things that I took from that marriage was a large Cuisinart food processor, as my ex had no use for it.

I love machines, and the Cuisinart is one of them. I was determined to learn how to utilize every aspect of its capabilities, including its ability to knead bread dough.  I read somewhere that a flour company had a recipe book for “cool rise bread,” and I tracked down their address, which was in another state.  This was before the internet, so that task was more complicated than typing in a query in Google. I wrote them a letter..

A few weeks later, I received a nice note from the flour company, saying that they were surprised to hear from me, as their flour was not sold in the Chicago market.  However, they sent me the booklet and wished me well. I adapted their recipes for my food processor.

Cool-rise recipes were ideal for me at that time, as I could quickly mix and knead the dough in the food processor, then drop the dough into a couple of bread pans that I placed in the refrigerator, where they would slowly rise. Eight to 48 hours later, I would bake the bread at my convenience.  Having fresh bakery fresh bread as a poor medical resident was a tremendous morale booster. Typically,  I ate generic white bread that tasted like sawdust. 

When the bread machine craze hit in the 1990s, I bought a machine that made one-pound loaves.  I upgraded to a machine that made 2-pound loaves sometime in the early 2000s, and I still have that machine today. However, I eventually stopped using my bread machine, and I’m not sure why.

As my kids got older, I would make bread for them as a treat; soon, they were helping me in the process. By then, I had graduated to a Bosch Universal Mixer, a tremendous mixer that could make six loaves of 100% whole wheat bread at a time.  It was great. However, the Bosch method still required work, and I no longer need six loaves of bread. 

During the pandemic, I was cleaning my basement and rediscovered my bread machine. Would it even power up after sitting dormant for years?  The answer was yes!.

I do most of the household’s cooking and make a lot of food from scratch.  I cook many combination foods, such as soups, stews, and casseroles.  These types of foods lend themselves well to a bread product, and I’ll often whip up something ranging from cornbread to a savory muffin.  However, nothing has quite the allure of the smell of freshly baked bread.

Humans have been making some form of bread for over 14,000 years, and it is possible to make bread with the simplest methods and ingredients.  Some people love the physicality of kneading dough, but I’m not one of them.  However, I love the taste of homemade yeast products, and that is where my old bread machine comes to my rescue.  I can toss in a few inexpensive ingredients, press a button, and a few hours later, I have a fantastic loaf of warm bread.

There are hundreds of bread recipes that can be made in a bread machine.  White, rye, wheat, fruited, nutted, egg-enriched, sweet, savory, you name it. I made a nice white loaf today.  What did it cost me for a 2-pound loaf of fresh, delicious bread?  Around seventy-eight cents, including the cost of the electricity. 

Bread machines are no longer trendy, so you can often get a used one at a second-hand store for almost nothing.  Just make sure that the pan and paddle are included and that it powers up when plugged in.  They are very durable, as mine is still running strong, despite being over 20 years old. Most electronic gadgets left in a basement for years would be out of commission. Mine is not an isolated case, as there are internet reports of others who are still using their bread machines decades after purchase.

In fact, I recently searched for bread machines on Facebook Marketplace and found many used models in the $10-25 range.  You can’t even go to McDonald’s for that amount of cash.  If you are interested, this is what to look for:

-Get a machine that makes between a 1.5 and 2-pound loaf

-Most prefer a traditional horizontal pan, but a vertical pan also works.

-Make sure that the unit comes with the baking pan AND the paddle. 

-Make sure it powers up when plugged in.

-You can find recipes on the internet, and you can likely download your particular machine’s manual/recipe guide from the manufacturer’s website.

Many new bread machines sell for under $100, but top-of-the-line machines, such as those from Zojirushi, cost hundreds.  Zojirushi is considered the best, but most will do fine with a less expensive brand.

Machines come with multiple programs to make different types of bread.  Most users will use only three types: standard (white) bread, whole wheat, and dough.  The dough setting is a great option, as the machine will do all of the hard work of making the dough, and all you have to do is form it for baking.  The dough setting is terrific for making pizza dough, rolls, coffee cakes, and braided breads, where you make the dough in the machine but bake it in your regular oven.

Some additional program settings may be included such as sweet breads, and gluten-free bread. If your bread maker doesn’t have a particular specialty setting you can try using the standard white bread setting. Additionally, some machines allow you to create programs where you determine each step of the bread making process. This last option is for advanced users who develop their own recipes or who use unique bread flours that require unusual mixing, kneading, and backing times. Will you use the cake, yogurt, or jam settings that your machine may have?  Probably not, but that’s your choice.

Although many ingredients can be used to make bread, here are the basic ones and why they are necessary:

Flour – There are many types of flour, but for simplicity, let’s focus on white flour.  Most bread machine recipes instruct you to use bread flour, a flour with a 15% gluten content.  When your machine kneads dough, the gluten proteins are altered, becoming stretchy and more flexible.  This results in a delicious, chewy, and spongy bread.  All-purpose (AP) flour is a versatile flour suitable for a wide range of applications.  It typically has a gluten content of 12-13% so bread made with AP flour won’t be quite as chewy or structurally sound as bread made from bread flour.  In an ideal world, use bread flour for optimal results. You can simulate bread flour by adding a couple of tablespoons of Vital Wheat Gluten to AP flour to your bread ingredients, or just forgo the vital wheat gluten and still make a delicious breadmaker loaf using only AP flour. I often do that as I always have AP flour on hand. Lastly, cake flour contains only 7-9% gluten, as you don’t want a chewy cake; the low gluten content assures a tender result. 

Yeast-yeast is a living organism that feeds on the sugars and starches in bread dough and produces carbon dioxide gas, or CO2, as a byproduct.  It is the CO2 gas bubbles that cause bread to rise. The yeast is killed in the baking process. Yeast comes in various types.  Some bread machines use Active Dry Yeast, while others require Bread Machine Yeast, which is also called Instant Yeast. Instant Yeast granules are smaller and dissolve faster than the granules of Active Dry Yeast.

Sugar-any form of sugar can be used, white sugar, brown sugar, honey, and molasses.  Small amounts of sugar are added to help jump-start the yeast’s growth. 

Salt-salt adds flavor and also controls yeast growth.  Never mix salt with the yeast when you add your ingredients; put them in a separate spot in the machine’s bread pan.  

Water– is needed to bind all of the ingredients together.  Naturally, other liquids, such as milk, are sometimes used to achieve a different type of loaf.

Other ingredients-.Eggs, dried fruits, spices, cheese, meats, different types of flours, nuts, butter, cooking oil, powdered milk, you name it.  Each addition requires a slightly different recipe and may require different rising and baking times.  The good news is that others have already figured out all of this. If you have a new machine, read the manual/recipe booklet.  If you purchased a used breadmaker, download its manual, which will include recipes ranging from white bread to pizza dough, specifically created for your machine.

A simple and inexpensive white bread recipe.

*You must add ingredients into the baking pan in the order written. 

-1.5 cups warm water

-2 T cooking oil

-1 and 3/4 t salt

-4 cups or 500 gms bread flour (or AP flour)

-2 T sugar

-2 ¼ tsp bread maker yeast (I use regular Active Dry Yeast with good results)

Use your bread maker’s “normal” or “white loaf” setting. Mine makes a great loaf of white bread in 3.5 hours. Total cost of the loaf, including electricity?  $0.78!

Allow the bread to cool at least 30 minutes before cutting.  A serrated knife works best. Any will do, but I like a knife that is a bit longer. It is not necessary to buy an expensive serrated knife, as they are no different from a less expensive one.  Serrated knives don’t cut the bread; they tear into it.  I have also used a standard Chef’s knife.  If it is sharp enough, it will slice bread. 

Remember, that homemade bread has no preservatives or other agents to keep it looking fresh.  If you don’t consume it in a couple of days, freeze it.  You can purchase inexpensive bread bags on Amazon, as well as other types of containers, to store unused bread. If we have any left after a meal, we usually use a large Ziploc-style bag, as we have those on hand.

Homemade bread machine bread is delicious and almost effortless to make. Having a homemade slice of bread with dinner elevates the experience, and a lunch sandwich made with homemade bread is superior to any packaged product.  If you see a machine at a thrift store, give it a try.  If you want to buy new, there are many machines available in the sub-$100 range.  Happy bread making!

Mike

Images are my own or screenshots used only for educational purposes.