As you said, purchased bread has LOTS of preservatives and is SO REFINED that it is no longer a desirable thing to put in your tummy. That is also the case with the cheaper bread mixes. Go to a good co-op and buy whole grain flour with no preservatives - keep it in the refrigerator - it will mold. Then you KNOW you are getting healthy bread for yourself and your family. I made my own bread for many years - now, I rarely eat it, but if I do, I buy sprouted bread from the health food store.

As a side note: did you know that the color of the twist-tie on bread sacks indicates the freshness of the bread/the day it is delivered to the store? I learned the following from a neighbor who worked for Manor Bread company:

Blue is delivered on Monday
Green is delivered on Tuesday
Red is delivered on Thursday
White is delivered on Friday
Yellow is delivered on Saturday

Check the twist tie to determine how fresh it is!

Oh, it is definitely cheaper to make it. I make mine in the bread machine, but bake it in the oven. Mmmmm!

The way I look at it, nothing is priced reasonably anymore . . . so to me, it just depends on what I want at the moment. Right now, I have a ball of dark honey wheat dough rising, that I'll get 2 medium loaves from. I was going to buy a loaf of artisan multigrain bread at the store an hour earlier, but it was over $3 for a tiny loaf . . . so I put it back and came home and used a couple of bucks worth of ingredients. By the time I heat my oven up, it's probably a wash . . . but my family will be happier with my bread. For our every-day-multigrain-sandwich-bread, I go to the bakery outlet that sells loaves that are still within a week of their expiration date, but half the price of the grocery store. Yeah, it has preservatives in it, but that's the way it is . . . I rationalize that it's still waaaaaay better than eating fast food every day :)

I make a lot of my own breads.

It takes only 3-4 cups of flour (about a pound) to make a loaf of bread. The no-knead recipe only calls for 1/4 teaspoon yeast (which I buy in bulk, cheaply, at the Amish market). Other breads I make use my homemade grape starter. Most use water. I rarely make breads with things like oil/butter in them any more. So yes--it's still way, way cheaper to make your own, IMO. 1 pound of flour costs much less, still, than a loaf of decent bread.

kayjones-- thank you for that! I've always wondered what the tie colors indicated and was sure it had something to do with delivery day. Now I know!

I think each bread company has its own color-code, though, so it might be better to go by the "use-by" date on the package.

I used to make sourdough bread every week. It was pretty inexpensive to make, it only cost me flour and the other ingredients and a cup of sugar to feed the starter. We got tired of it though and I haven't made any since.

Thanks for all your replies. The bag of flour I bought today cost me a little under $4 so with the ingredients I already have, I probably can get two more loaves which already reduces the price I would pay at Whole Foods.

Thanks for the tip about the tags.

Donna

Just got this from a friend today. She says it's really good. I've got to pick up some yeast when I go to the store and then I'm going to try it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Easy Bread

I wish he had printed the directions/ingredients list - my speakers quit working, so I don't know what to mix. If anyone has the information, could you please post it here? Thanks!

The 'Easy Bread' link to U-Tube has been removed -- at least my computer cannot access it.

However, the search engine Google provides another website with easy to follow directions (with lots of photos) for an easy bread recipe. Trent gives ingredients, directions, and equipment needed.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Simple Dollar Bread Recipe by Trent

A loaf that is very big and very healthy costs me $5.63 here and I'm happy to pay it....no junk and no preservatives. BUT I've been making break for many years and I make it for about 1/4 of that. It's nice not to HAVE to bake in the heat....especially if I have access to this wonderful bread.

Son thought that he could make a loaf of bread for about 50 cents ... I'd thought about 35 cents.

I used to buy 10 kg. (22 lbs.) of all-purpose flour for about $8.50 ... now it's gone up to nearly $12.00: whole wheat usually slightly more.

I usually use 3 cups all-purp. and 1 cup whole wheat, so if there are 3 - 4 cups/lb., in using 4 cups, I'm using 1 - 1.3 lb., so get about 16 - 20 or so loaves per bag, or used to be somewhat over 50 cents per loaf, now more like 75 cents.

A tablespoonful of oil, another of sugar and a teaspoon of salt add a slight bit more and I use a teaspoon of yeast, of which a large pack costs $5.00, so I've made a large number of loaves within the past year and haven't reached near the bottom of the last glass bottle with a seal lid in which I store it (in the refrig.). If I've done a loaf a week (and I think something less) that makes it about 10 cents per loaf.

Plus about 2 cups water - and, as you know, I _ d o n't _ u s e _ b o t t l e d _ w a t e r! So - cost is negligible.

Getting up near a dollar a loaf, and I think that it weighs about 2 lb. - while I used to try to get a 675 gram (just under 1.5 lb.) loaf of cracked wheat bread (about 60% whole wheat, I think) for $1.69 ... but that price bit the dust some time ago! It's almost always over $2.00 now, I think. When one adds other grains, flax, sunflower, etc. ... the price escalates!

Plus - I brought back flax seed from my brother's farm a couple of years ago, and add a tablespoon or more per loaf, ran out a while ago, so bought some at the bulk store ... and on a recent trip out west brought back something over a 2-gal. ice cream container of flax seed to add to my bread for a couple of years (or more) more.

A while ago in a discussion here we talked of sister-in-law using her coffee grinder to grind the flax ... and thought that it might add some sort of exotic taste to the coffee. We wondered whether we could sell the recipe to Starbucks for rather large dollars.

By the way - some of you should come up here to try Tim Hortons coffee: they are everywhere in Canada ... we have about 23 coffee houses of their brand in London, with market area about 350,000, I've heard. I'd heard that, after Wendy's bought them, they'd been building Tim Hortons coffee houses in the U.S., but Wendys divested a while ago and I heard were not building now. But I found a number of them along I-75, down about as far as KY, I think.

Poor man's Starbucks ... Starbucks are too pricey for my taste! And someone said the other day that they weren't impressed with the Starbucks' taste, regardless of the price.

Of course, in addition to the price of making a loaf at home today ... one should add in a portion of the cost of the machine ... and they run up around $100. each (often available for a quite a bit less).

But I got one at a yard sale a while ago for $7.50, that I hadn't used (it made somewhat smaller than usual loaves, and I hadn't found a recipe). Later loaned it to a lady running a small store who gave me a good deal on flour ... and it appears that she couldn't make it work ... so threw it out! Within a couple of weeks of buying it, Bruce's friend, while travelling with me, found a new one identical to Bruce's thrown out with garbage, that I'm using now (he didn't want it). Bruce, after his original went ka-flooie, had bought another, at pretty well full price, a few weeks previously.

If one could buy one for around $50.00 (it pays to have patience), that made a loaf a week for 4 - 5 years (about the time that my son used his first one, I think, before it leaked around the bottom of the pan and burned out the motor) ... that'd add about 20 - 25 cents per loaf to the cost of making bread at home.

A rather rough estimate of the cost, that may be helpful.

Ask around among your friends who use a breadmaker - people love talking about stuff that interests them.

I hope that you find some ways to tread more lightly upon the earth, this week (and making bread a loaf at a time isn't the most efficient way, energy-use wise).

ole joyful

Depends on where you get the flour, if you grind it yourself from wheat that you get a good deal on, what else you put in it besides the usuals. I started making the recipe on the link. I make one batch just about every week. Freeze one loaf..keep the other out. I use Bob's Red Mill Organic White Flour 4.19/5lbs and bulk yeast I keep in the freezer from Costco.
The bread I buy for the boys is by Franz (I think they are a "local" bakery though. Whole Grain White-No High Fructose Corn Syrup I buy it when it's $2 a loaf and stock up.
They eat it or homemade bread now.
I make these for hamburger buns, dinner rolls and sandwich rolls. Depends on size. I do the dough in my bread machine.
Honey Wheat Sandwich Rolls I have made it in a big free form round 'loaf' for a layered "stuffed" sandwich and baked it in a bread pan. Tonight it was burger buns for turkey burgers.
I use Organic White Whole Wheat and the above mentioned white flour. Delish

Here is a link that might be useful: White bread thread

I make French bread fairly often, and I can make many loaves out of one five pound bag of flour, because two cups of flour makes two one-foot long loaves.

I also can usually get jars of yeast fairly cheaply around Christmas, and the recipe for two loaves takes only 1 1/4 teaspoons of yeast. So I believe that it is much cheaper for me to bake bread than to buy it--at least for that type of bread.

However, I do purchase regular packaged sliced bread for my spouse for sandwiches.

DH has been baking the 5 minute artisan bread and it's soooo good and easy. The instructions make 4 small loaves but we just bake 2 loaves in loaf pans so we can get uniform slices. It freezes very well.

Linda

Here is a link that might be useful: 5 minute artisan bread

The you tube link works okay for me. Sorry you had trouble thunderboltlee.

I love the texture and flavor of homemade bread, and the aroma of the bread baking is an added bonus, so I very seldom buy bread. With the price of flour now, I don't suppose it adds up to much of a saving though. I make 5 loaves at a time, and they freeze wonderfully. It takes about 4 lbs of all purpose flour and 2 pounds of whole wheat. 3 packets if yeast, some salt, a little honey and dark molasses and a stick of butter. 4 cups of water and a cup of milk, and there it is. My family complains if they have to eat what my grandmother used to call "store-boughten bread".

Elisabeth

Thanks for the video link to easy bread. I am going to try it.

I tried making bread years ago. It was so much work. I made about four flops until I finally got one that worked. I retired from bread baking after that. I think yeast hates me!

jannie, it sounds like the (1) yeast was old (2) water was too hot (3) room wasn't right temp. Sorry you had such a bad experience with it. The temps can get a little dicey, especially in the winter time. It's not what I consider an easy project, it IS time consuming, but I still enjoy doing it occasionally....but just for me, I rarely do. But I sure enjoy eating it :-0

This is my new 'hobby'! I bake a loaf each Sunday and we generally end up putting the leftovers at the end of the week out for the birds. Last night it was fresh baby dill with garlic, I use 3 cups of flour and one of those is wheat. I just LOVE the smell of it baking!!! I am not a big bread eater...none of us really are (as you can tell by giving the last bit to the birds at the end of the week).

This next Sunday is Apricot English Muffin Loaves! Mmmmm (I don't see the birds getting much of this one tho)

Oh no -

it might be cheaper to make it yourself - but I quickly discovered that it smells so good while baking and tastes better than store bought - that we now EAT more.