Hey, c/frugal, I was reading through this little post, (https://lazysoci.al/post/23833029) when a comment about baking bread reminded me of something I had heard back on reddit: that apparently baking bread is a great way to be frugal. <br> I haven’t had bread for a while, and would love to engage with the bread-eating community again, and so I wish to ask your favorite frugal bread recipes! From loaves to naan, I would love your input :) <br> P.S. I would also love to ask what you all think of breadmakers, are they a good frugal buy?
I once did some math just before starting to make my own “bread”. I learned it’s about 3-4 times cheaper to make it myself (and to get much more at the same time).
So, after maybe fifteen years I retried making it myself. It’s a chore, yes, but the fruits are a little bit more rewarding than how awful the tedious work feels like 😅
(of course, if you can buy old bread which date is past the best before, you can go cheap without making food yerself).
My wife bakes two loafes of sourdough bread every Weekend, without a breadmaker or anything Its always great, even when its “bad” its still way better than any storebought bread
Here’s a 4 ingredient Artisan loaf recipe that is foolproof:
Less than $1.75 cad with ‘regular priced’ groceries. If you buy bulk, etc, the cost drops below $1.40.
I have been doing this for years. The recipe you linked is too much work for me, I usually just finish the dough in the same bowl, less clean up.
I use a canadian “all-purpose” unbleached flour, water, salt, and instant yeast, and vary additives based on the kind of loaf. For sandwich bread I add rolled oats and red river cereal and a bit of dairy (for crust softener) and bake in a loaf pan at lower temperature than the dutch oven for a boule.
Tonight is an extra dough for pizza too, so that dough will be just white flour but not as “slack” (wet), and I will turn it out onto a pastry board for shaping.
We make pizza every weekend, so 1 or 2 dough at a time.
And we make bread with a generous amount of trail mix added at least 2 or three times a week.
Our entire level bread machine paid for itself in a few months.
And we could be using it to make all kinds of dough and bread. One of my most used appliances.
I had to stop all iodized salt for a while for some treatments so I ended up making a lot of my own bread. Even though I’m back to a regular diet now my gf loves the bread so much I end up making a loaf weekly. I usually half this recipe for a single loaf.
Super simple. Also fairly fast if you use instant yeast to skip the first rise. The key is to use honey as a sweetener instead of refined sugar. It’ll help the bread last longer without moulding
I make all my own bread, never owned a bread maker. Sourdough is delicious and healthy, but takes some planning. Highly recommend pantrymama.com for all things sourdough.
Pro tip, bread of any type freezes really well. I bake a loaf, slice it, and put slips of parchment in between each slice so I can pull one or two pieces out at a time. Never put it in the fridge though, because that just makes it stale.
King Arthur flour is another good resource (and good flour). They have a hotline where you can get help if needed.
I like like the pizza bread recipe by @Aragusea@youtube.com. I use it as a pizza dough as well as focaccia dough. I find it good to use after 3 days in the fridge and up to 5 days where as Adam Ragusea wait for a week. But it is easy to make. I cook it in on a sheetpan with no need of specific equipment and it can be store quite long for a fresh bread dough, neatly packed in the fridge.
I use a breadmaker every few days, definitely worth it for me. The mental load compared to making it in the oven is just nothing. Just put the ingredients in (takes maybe 3 min) and go to sleep. (Idk if fire is possible but I have a fire alarm so…) Next day you have fresh bread. So wayyy too boring if you want to make bread as a hobby but perfect if you just want bread.
For “recipies” I just use flour, water, salt and yeast + maybe other stuff to change it up (egg, olive oil, sunflower seeds, nuts, olives…)
I bought an old bread machine from a thrift store for $15. Took a little bit, but I found it’s original manual online and it had a bunch of recipes in there. We usually use the basic white bread recipe in a 2 pound loaf (matches the programs it has). Recipe is as follows:
1.25 cups +2tbsp of hot water
3tbsp sugar
3tbsp oil
1.5tsp salt
4 cups bread flour (I use all purpose and it works fine)
4tsp yeast
The program mixes the bread for about 5-10 minutes, then bake for a little under an hour. So in about an hour and pennies worth of ingredients, we have a homemade loaf of bread. The only issue I have is storing it and keeping it away from the air. The stuff gets stale pretty quick. That’s when I make French Toast. Good luck with your search.
For making a bread that doesn’t go stale, there’s a trick of mixing about 40% of the flour with a bit of water, heating it on a stove until it turns into a coagulated paste and then chilling it before mixing it back into the dough. That’s how I make a brioche type yeast bread, but it should be possible to do for regular bread too.
I second the “check a thrift store” idea. People buy them, use them 3 times, then eventually donate them so you’ll likely find several barely used models.
