Cheap Bread
You can make your own
bread and get a good upper body workout. I've been managing to get the 12 grain whole wheat bread I like
for $2.00 a loaf on sale. (Not organic, not stone ground.) I fill a shelf in the freezer whenever that
happens. However, we know that sooner than later these grocery price
wars will end and the cost of wheat will raise the price of a loaf of
bread to something more like what it's actually worth.
Even using the very best local organic hard red spring wheat stone ground flour, it costs about $1 for a loaf. If you buy a huge bag of really cheap flour at Costco, well then it's going to be less.
I also took a shot of the local spelt flour I use in my sweet quick breads. I wouldn't try making yeast bread with it.
If you haven't made bread before, you might start by finding a bread machine at a yard sale and making it that way first. (Make sure you get the manual!) After I wore out two bread machines from using them weekly, I started to make it by hand, using the same recipe and bread machine yeast. What I found out that I'd failed to learn back in the seventies is that you have to knead whole wheat dough for at least 15 minutes. That's hard work! If I were going to start again, (once my two broken wrists are really healed) I'd get two more loaf pans and make four loaves at a time. As long as you have to be around for the hours while it rises twice, you may as well do a bunch. And you only use the electricity of the oven once. For one person's daily lunch sandwich, that might mean as infrequently as once a month. It's only about an hour's actual labor to save $5 but you have to be mindful of the oven temperature for hours at a time.
I'm not posting a recipe here because it's been a couple of years since I made it and I don't want to forget some key point.
To raise the dough, I turn the oven on for less than one minute then turn it off. The oiled dough in a big crockery bowl covered with a towel goes in the warm oven. In the winter, after an hour or so the oven may have cooled off so you have to take the bowl out, reheat the oven and put it back in. There's some luck involved, because sometimes the loaves are lovely and high and sometimes they're not. Never so bad you have to feed it to the birds, though.
Also, I found I really had to use 1/3 white (unbleached) flour or it was just too heavy and crumbly. Whole wheat bread that hasn't been kneaded enough tastes like nice moist muffins when it's fresh and warm. Once it cools you can't even slice it, it's so crumbly. I include 1/4 cup of gluten flour (from the health food store) as part of the white flour, because it's the gluten that makes the dough elastic and the bread spongy.
Obviously this is not for gluten sensitive people. As far as I know it's quite difficult to make good yeast bread with spelt flour.
I'd like to hear from folks about their experiences making bread and also whether you feel like it saves you enough money to make it worthwhile. The photo is of buns I made with dough from the bread machine.
Here's a tip from David you might want to explore:
"Inexpensive bread made easy with no machine (OK the oven is technically a machine as is my grain mill)…go sourdough using a sponge method and cut your kneading time way down….you can also use yeast which will cut the whole process time way down…see Joe Ortiz’s Village Baker and Nourishing Traditions for more on this type of baking."
And here are some good tips from a ship's cook who bakes bread daily.
I've been baking bread for years aboard our ship Pegasus.
A few pointers......
To rise the bread put boiling water in a shallow pan in the bottom of the oven below where the bread pans go.
Bake it with the water filled pan beneath.
Raise only once... not twice
Make the dough really soft.. to the point where it just pulls away from the bowl... then knead with lots of flour
on the board and your hands... lots less trouble this way...
Bob's Red Mill makes the best whole wheat flour I've used... I can make loaves using just it... but most others
need white to make a nice product.
Get the yeast going in the water sugar solution with as much flour as water at first... this makes a "sponge" and
you can see the action because it rises....
Then add the rest of the flour and knead...
Leave a comment at the blog.
Home Eating Beans
If you haven't made bread before, you might start by finding a bread machine at a yard sale and making it that way first. (Make sure you get the manual!) After I wore out two bread machines from using them weekly, I started to make it by hand, using the same recipe and bread machine yeast. What I found out that I'd failed to learn back in the seventies is that you have to knead whole wheat dough for at least 15 minutes. That's hard work! If I were going to start again, (once my two broken wrists are really healed) I'd get two more loaf pans and make four loaves at a time. As long as you have to be around for the hours while it rises twice, you may as well do a bunch. And you only use the electricity of the oven once. For one person's daily lunch sandwich, that might mean as infrequently as once a month. It's only about an hour's actual labor to save $5 but you have to be mindful of the oven temperature for hours at a time.
I'm not posting a recipe here because it's been a couple of years since I made it and I don't want to forget some key point.
To raise the dough, I turn the oven on for less than one minute then turn it off. The oiled dough in a big crockery bowl covered with a towel goes in the warm oven. In the winter, after an hour or so the oven may have cooled off so you have to take the bowl out, reheat the oven and put it back in. There's some luck involved, because sometimes the loaves are lovely and high and sometimes they're not. Never so bad you have to feed it to the birds, though.
Also, I found I really had to use 1/3 white (unbleached) flour or it was just too heavy and crumbly. Whole wheat bread that hasn't been kneaded enough tastes like nice moist muffins when it's fresh and warm. Once it cools you can't even slice it, it's so crumbly. I include 1/4 cup of gluten flour (from the health food store) as part of the white flour, because it's the gluten that makes the dough elastic and the bread spongy.
Obviously this is not for gluten sensitive people. As far as I know it's quite difficult to make good yeast bread with spelt flour.
I'd like to hear from folks about their experiences making bread and also whether you feel like it saves you enough money to make it worthwhile. The photo is of buns I made with dough from the bread machine.
Here's a tip from David you might want to explore:
"Inexpensive bread made easy with no machine (OK the oven is technically a machine as is my grain mill)…go sourdough using a sponge method and cut your kneading time way down….you can also use yeast which will cut the whole process time way down…see Joe Ortiz’s Village Baker and Nourishing Traditions for more on this type of baking."
And here are some good tips from a ship's cook who bakes bread daily.
I've been baking bread for years aboard our ship Pegasus.
A few pointers......
To rise the bread put boiling water in a shallow pan in the bottom of the oven below where the bread pans go.
Bake it with the water filled pan beneath.
Raise only once... not twice
Make the dough really soft.. to the point where it just pulls away from the bowl... then knead with lots of flour
on the board and your hands... lots less trouble this way...
Bob's Red Mill makes the best whole wheat flour I've used... I can make loaves using just it... but most others
need white to make a nice product.
Get the yeast going in the water sugar solution with as much flour as water at first... this makes a "sponge" and
you can see the action because it rises....
Then add the rest of the flour and knead...
Leave a comment at the blog.
Home Eating Beans
