It turns out that the only bread cheaper than a homemade loaf is the value brand variety.
Following a tense mathematical ten minutes, we discovered that a loaf of wholemeal bread baked at home (in a 2lb loaf tin) only costs us 81p! Using Tesco as a comparison, their 800g baked in store loaf is £1.30. I am stunned; all I have to do is watch the dough hook turn for 5 minutes! Obviously, supermarkets have factored in their overheads and we haven't, but I don't really see that as a deal breaker (especially if I'm baking other stuff in the same oven).
I used this recipe: BBC Good Food Loaf
With this dough hook: Life/time saving food processor (but don't forget that hand kneading is free and burns calories!)
To make this loaf:
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2 comments:
And of course, nothing beats freshly home made bread. I am vaguely surprised that it is cheaper than supermarket bread, though. I have heard (undoubtedly in the urban myth category) that supermarkets sell bread as a loss leader to get people to buy other stuff. Next time I make a loaf, I will have to work out how much the ingredients cost. Have you factored in the cost of energy used? I wouldn't know where to start with that.
I was really surprised that it turned out to be cheaper. I was inspired to work it out after listening to a radio interview with someone having a hard time in the face of our current economy. She claimed that baking her own bread saved her a significant amount of money; I was sceptical. However, basing the working out on ingredients it does seem to be the case:
£1.39 for a bag of flour divided by two, 64p for a tub of yeast divided by eight, 29p for a container of salt divided by 125, £1.29 for a bag of sugar divided by 83 and £2 for olive oil divided by 17.
This leaves a margin of about 50p for overheads - fuel, water and wages ;). I wouldn't know where to start for the gas used either, but this link from Which suggests it's negligible for a half hour bake - particularly if you bake other stuff at the same time: http://tinyurl.com/mpyaa8k
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