Bake your own yummy bread for 30p a loaf

I can't understand why more people don't make their own bread - and yes that includes using a breadmaker for all those clever dicks who say that you aren't making real bread if you are using one. This sparked off a sarcastic debate on Facebook the other day, which ended with me comparing the comments to other things e.g.

"I didn't really have milk in my tea this morning because it didn't come straight from a cow's tit. And it wasn't real tea either as I didn't sail to India to pick the leaves before breakfast, it was a PG Tips teabag".

Point made I think. There seems to be this opinion that using a breadmaker is somehow cheating, but if it produces perfect bread every time then why is it cheating? I don't hear this about any other modern labour saving devices so why is the breadmaker singled out for derision.

The Panasonic SD253 - still going strong after 7 years.

Anyway, 30p a loaf, that's how much I've got my costs down to now for baking my own bread - OK - admittedly this excludes the electricity to do it, but how much can that be - pennies?

I've tried a number of different recipes with a number of different flours and yes, admittedly there is an element of "you get what you pay for" but the price differential between different brands varies enormously.

For example the nicest flour I have found is the Wessex Mills range - they sell it in Nash's at the rather steep price of £2.50 - or £2.25 if you get your 10% discount for having something in the cafe - i.e. Bacon Roll and Coffee.

The best flour - £2.50

Absolutely delicious, but the price differential is such that a standard flour does the job 90% as well, and at 60p - the going rate for Tesco's standard strong white you can't go far wrong. These come in standard sizes of 1.5Kg which is enough for 3 and 3/4 loaves at 400g a go.

A 60p bargain

I think this is one of those key items that the supermarkets compete on - like milk, so there's very little margin in it. The others do similar, the cheapest I have found is Aldi's at 59p. Like I said it's probably 90% of the quality of the Wessex Mills but at £2.50 vs 60p I'm willing to take that % drop in quality.

This year's had an aura of all things Gallic about it for various reasons, and my bread making is no different. The breadmaker has a settting for French Bread and the recipe is remarkably simple. In the past I have baked wholemeal and white loaves containing Sugar, Milk Powder and Vitamin C powder, none of which are included in the French Recipe. The idea is you get bread similar to what you would have in a French Stick. Obviously it's not a French Stick, it comes out as an actual loaf, such as below. Which is handier anyway. The recipe is incredibly simple - here it is, plus costs.

1 tsp Yeast (5p approx, Allinsons)
400g Strong White Flour (17p approx from Tesco)
15g Butter (7p approx)
1 tsp Salt (1p approx)
300 ml water ("free" - ok fractions of a penny if you're on a meter).

So that's how I do it for 30p, and here is the end result.

Freshly baked bread

Bread is a staple food in this house, the kids eat more of it than anything else. A lovely fresh loaf like this won't have time to go off - 24 hours is about as long as it will last before it's all wolfed down, and that's even with wifey being off carbs at the moment. So none of the artificial preservatives you get in shop bought bread needed. I used to buy wrapped (factory) bread from Iceland - but quite honestly it tasted stale as soon as opened even if a few days off it's use by date, and I wondered how long it took to get from bakery to shelf. May well have been sat in the back of the shop for a few days in the interests of "stock rotation".

Now one of the problems encountered with this sort of bread is it's quite difficult to slice. Not for me! My faithful old Andrew James Meat Slicer also has a bread blade and it produces lovely even thick slices which can be put in the toaster or used for sandwiches. Admittedly there are crumbs everywhere afterwards, but this is to be expected as anyone who has every tried to slice a freshly baked French Stick will know!

My mate Andrew -
best kitchen appliance I have ever purchased.

And sandwiches are a must in this house. My four year old son (Ollie) is in Year One (his second year) at St Edburg's Primary which is a small school in Bicester which does not have a canteen. All of the children take packed lunches. This is a godsend (C of E school - geddit?) for me, because Ollie is notoriously fussy over food but the one thing I can guarantee he will eat is bread - or more specifically marmite sandwiches. So I can send him off to school each day with his lunchbox secure in the knowledge he's got something fresh, homemade that he will eat in there. As he did every day last year when he was in Class R.

So there you have it - the 30p loaf, fresh, the kids eat it, baked and sliced right here at Baconham Villa.

I'm feeling peckish after writing all that, time for a slice of toast I think!

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