Costs got you down? Feel like you are living paycheck to paycheck? Inflation, war, tariffs, they all combine to shrink you available cash by increasing the costs of necessary items. I don’t have the power to fix those things, but I can pass on tips to make your dollars stretch further.
Bread is the staff of life, and has always been considered an inexpensive meal extended. You can still buy a loaf of bread for around $2, but the quality of that bread is quite literally rubbish. I recently searched the website of a local grocery chain and the average brand name breads cost between $3.50-$6.50 a loaf.
I have made many excellent breads in a bread maker for much less than that, but I wondered how inexpensively I could make a decent loaf of bread now, as prices for basic ingredients have climbed.
Most bread recipes use bread flour due to its higher gluten content. However, bread flour is more expensive than all-purpose flour, and may be harder to find in some locations. AP flour can be found in every grocery store, dollar store and even some gas station grocery sections.
I researched bread recipes that used AP flour and settled on this one from the YouTube channel, “Robyn On The Farm.” I have made other recipes of hers with good results. I’ll be making a 1.5 pound loaf, as that most closely approximates a typical bread. I’m sourcing my prices from Aldi, Walmart, and Amazon websites. I’m rounding up, so it is likely that the actual cost of a loaf will be slightly lower than what I’m calculating. Let’s take a look at the recipe.
This is the recipe screenshot directly from “Robyn On The Farm.” We will be making the 1.5 pound loaf today. I am making one substitution, using cooking oil instead of butter. I’ll also show the price of the bread if you use butter later in this post.
Let’s take a look at the ingredient costs:
We will use 2T of cooking oil instead of 3T of butter. Why the volume reduction? Butter actually has water in it where cooking oil does not. If you need to make a conversion from butter to cooking oil reduce the amount by 1/4th to 1/3rd when making bread. Cost of the oil used for this recipe = 8 cents.
We are only using 1/4th cup of milk, which is around 5 cents worth.
The Aldi website had 5 pounds of AP flour for $2.15, but my store sells it for less than $2. At the $2.15 price the amount of flour being used is 30 cents.
Only 2T of sugar are used in this recipe. The cost based on the above is around 4 cents.
I didn’t calculate out the cost of the salt, I’ll generously assume that it cost around 2 cents/loaf.
You will save a tremendous amount of money by buying yeast in a bulk package instead of those little envelopes. I store my yeast in the freezer, and I am using yeast that I opened almost a year ago. Cost of the yeast is around 4 cents.
Total cost for a loaf of bakery quality bread = 53 Cents
You will also need a bread machine. You can pick one up at a thrift store for pennies on the dollar.
This KBS machine was $20 at a thrift store, but everything is half off on Mondays, so I paid only $10 for it. You may have to do a little hunting, but you will eventually find one. I wrote a whole post on buying used machines, so use my page’s search tool if you need some tips.
Lets get into the recipe!
It is always a good idea to gather your ingredients and equipment. I’m reading the recipe off my computer. To be honest, it would be a much better idea to print it up. Computers and cooking don’t always mix well.
Add the 3/4 C water to you bread maker’s pan. I add all the ingredients with the pan outside of the machine to avoid spilling something into its electricals. We have chlorinated water which can inhibit yeast growth, so I use the filtered water from my fridge which I warm up in the microwave to “baby bottle” warm. You could also use bottled water, and many filtered water pitchers will remove chlorine.
Now add the 1/4 C of milk. You also want this warm. If it burns your hand it will kill the yeast. If it is too cold it will retard the yeast’s growth. A few seconds in the microwave should do it.
In goes the 2T of sugar.
Now the 2T of cooking oil. I’m substituting oil for butter as it is less expensive. I’ll also give the cost of a loaf using butter instead of oil at the end of this post.
I always weight my flour; 314 grams = 2 5/8 C. I’m off by 3 grams, but that is less than a 1% variation, and therefore insignificant.
I’m adding the 1 and 1/8t of salt. Always level off your measuring cups and spoons. Salt can kill yeast if it is too concentrated, so I’ll keep them separated in the pan. I’m using fancy pink salt. However, any salt will do, this is just what I grabbed.
Now the 1 and 1/8t of yeast. I buried the salt in the flour, but I could have also poured it into one corner and the yeast in another.
Place the baking pan in the bread machine and select the “Basic” or “White” bread cycle, 1.5 pound loaf (750 grams), and medium crust (or your choice of crust). Press start.
After the bread has mixed for a short amount of time, I’ll use a spatula to knock down any errant flour towards the dough ball. This isn’t absolutely necessary, and in most cases that flour will eventually mix in. However, I want all of the flour incorporated to check the dough ball consistency.
The dough ball is just about right, but a little slack as it isn’t forming a ball. This is despite weighing the flour. I’ll add 1T of flour, wait around 30 seconds and add more if needed. If the dough was too dry I would do the same with water, 1T at a time.
The dough ball now looks perfect. Round and slightly tacky. Now I can close the lid and go on to another project. The machine will handle the rest, and I’ll have real bakery quality bread in around 3 hours.
Here is the bread out of the bread maker. It looks great, but how does it taste?
Honestly, it tastes great! AP flour has less gluten, so the dough is a bit weaker which yields a more open loaf. It is also a bit softer, and less chewy. Using butter instead of oil would add some additional richness, but it tastes wonderful as it. This bread is definitely bakery quality.
Changes and additions
You can add or substitute some ingredients as below:
The original recipe called for 3T of butter which costs around 30 cents. If you made the loaf with butter instead of oil the loaf’s cost would be 75 cents. Still a bargain!
Adding 1T of instant potato flakes will keep moisture in your bread and it will stay fresh longer. This adds about 3 cents to the cost of a loaf
Other additions
Vital Wheat Gluten can be purchased in most grocery stores, but you will find much better value on-line. Adding around 1T to your bread makes the dough stronger; similar to the results that you get from using bread flour. Adding 1T of VWG adds around 8 cents to the total cost of the loaf.
-You can also dress up your bread by topping it with seeds.
-You can make it an herb bread by adding 1t of Italian seasoning, or turn it into an onion loaf by adding 1t of onion powder.
-I often add 1-2T of ground flax seeds for added taste and health benefits.
-You can choose the dough cycle instead of the bread cycle. When the cycle completes take the dough out and form it into hot dog or hamburger buns on a greased baking sheet. Cover and allow the dough to rise for around 30 minutes and bake at 375F (190C) until done, around 14-18 minutes.
-You can use the dough as a base for a homemade pizza.
The options are as varied as your imagination.
You can have warm bakery quality bread for around 1/4th of the cost of crumby store bread, or 1/12th the cost of a premium store loaf. Think about that. All for about 5 minutes of work!
Peace
Mike