1/16/2013

 Everyone at my house likes bread.  

Toast with butter or jelly. 

Sandwiches. 

Or just a plain old slice for a snack.

 

It's been months since we've bought bread, though. 

A while back we decided to start experimenting with homemade bread recipes and see if we could land on something we all liked. We have and we love it! 

One recipe that we now make about twice a week is for English Muffin Bread - find the original recipe at Money Saving Mom.  We love this bread! It's so easy to make (no kneading) that even my daughter has learned to do it on her own. We've made it the way the recipe outlines, making two loaves, though the way we like it best is to bake it in the pan from our bread machine, in the oven. This makes one huge loaf, which we like better than two small ones. Baking time remains 45 minutes. We use this bread for breakfast toast and also for french toast.

A second recipe that we also like is for the bread machine.

 Mix together in bread machine pan: 1 cup warm water, 2 T white sugar and 1 package of bread machine yeast (one package =  2 and 1/4 t). Let sit 10 minutes. Then add in 1/4 cup oil, 3 cups bread flour and 1 t salt. Start bread machine on regular white bread setting. 3 hours later - yummy! This is great sandwich bread. 

I haven't been tracking our savings, but I have no doubt that cutting the bread from our grocery store trips adds up. We used to buy bread at a bread outlet store for around 79 cents per loaf. But homemade bread costs even less than that to make! Yes, we have to purchase the ingredients for bread - the flour, the yeast, etc. But we are enjoying financial and health benefits as a result of making our own breads at home.  And with the aid of a bread machine, making delicious homemade bread has truly never been easier.

 

Little by little, we're eating healthier.

Little by little, we are healthier!