Easy Bread Recipe - Mess for Less (2024)

FAQs

Does it work out cheaper to make your own bread? ›

In a nutshell, if you're buying basic, cheap sandwich bread, it's probably cheaper than you can make it at home. But if you compare two loaves similar to what you could make at home — one made with high-quality ingredients as opposed to one made with lesser quality ingredients — home baking becomes much cheaper.

Too much flour and not enough water can cause crumbly bread – people often do this if the dough is too sticky and they add more flour rather than kneading through it. Other culprits can be overproving or not kneading enough – the things you need to do to get a good structure.

You can actually add a small amount of wheat gluten to enhance the dough and make it lighter and fluffier. The more gluten, the stronger the dough is. You can purchase vital wheat gluten and replace 1 Tbsp of flour with the vital wheat gluten. Here's a link to Anthony's Premium Vital Wheat Gluten on Amazon.

Making bread from a machine is marginally cheaper than buying it, as long as you eat bread frequently enough to offset the cost of the appliance. Specifically, I see this as an investment that's smart for households that go through bread quickly, like large families or homes with multiple roommates.

That said, most homemade breads are likely healthier than store-bought breads, which are often high in sugar and preservatives. One benefit of making your own bread is that you can control the ingredients. For example, you can use whole wheat flour instead of white flour, or add healthy toppings like nuts and seeds.

The color indicates the day of the week the bread was baked. Typically, commercial bread is baked and delivered to grocery stores five days a week. This gives bakeries two days off–Wednesdays and Sundays. The color system helps the store staff as they rotate in the freshest bread and remove the older loaves.

Bread Loaves made with over-kneaded dough commonly end up with a hard crust and dry interior. Often upon cutting, slices will crumble. If your perfect bread loaf turns into a crumbly mess, don't worry. The overworked dough will work great when used as croutons or breadcrumbs.

Adding too much flour is one common mistake for beginning bakers. This produces dry bread with more crumbs. The key is to find a balance between the flour and liquid ingredients in your recipe. It can be tricky because bread recipes don't always give you an exact amount of flour.

A normal loaf of white bread costs an average of $1.30 at the grocery store, with whole wheat being a bit pricier at around $2.00 a loaf. If you buy seven-grain or sourdoughs, those could be around $4.00. Most home bakers find they can make their bread at home from anywhere between $0.40 and $1.00 per loaf!!

Will a bread maker save me money? ›

A bread maker can save you money, too. A decent loaf of bread now costs anywhere from $4 to $8 at the grocery store, but a quality bread machine will help you combat rising bread costs. The ingredients to make a single loaf of bread -- flour, yeast, salt, oil -- typically average under 25 cents.

Accordingly, each time I bake at home I save around $2.30. In our household, we go through around three loaves of bread for my kids. That saves us $6.90 a week. Over the course of a year, this saves us $358.80.

Homemade bread is healthier

You don't have to decide between nutrition and price if you bake your own bread at home. Supermarket shelves are full of cheap bread made with lousy quality bleached flour, additives and preservatives and containing lots of sugar and very little fibre.