I used to have a bread machine growing up. There is nothing like fresh warm homemade bread. I definitely think its worth it. You can also use it to make pizza dough. Depending on how often you eat it I think in the long run it probably does save money.
Well bread is not all that expensive, but I am certain in large enough quantities...it would pay to make bread at home. It is pretty certain that high end breads would be cheaper to make at home, because I have seen some sold that are well over 10 dollars per loaf. I am sorry, but that is just too much for bread.
It's funny this thread should pop up - I've been trying yet again to make my own bread, but with no success what so ever. So far I've gone through almost half a bag of bread flour as well as several packets of yeast, and they all turned out terrible. I've been following the directions to a tee for all the recipes I tried, but still no luck. I proof the yeast in lukewarm water with some sugar, add in the bread flour and some salt, and mix and knead the dough with the bread hook attachments on my hand mixer. The dough itself looks fine, just like what I am seeing in the Youtube videos demonstrating breadmaking - not too sticky, not too dry, and very smooth. I gently warm my oven a bit and turn it off, and place the dough in an oiled bowl covered in plastic wrap, into the oven with the light left on, and let it rise for several hours. Then I punch it down and try to form it into a "loaf" and this is where things start to not work for me. I dust the punched down bread with flour and carefully form it into a loaf and either put it into a bread pan or on a baking sheet covered, and let it rise a second time. Once it's double in size again, I preheat my oven for 15 min, to 350, then put the loaf in gently. The bread, when in the oven, simply will not rise up to a full loaf. It just stays at that doubled size and browns. When I take it out of the pan, it's far too dense and doughy as well. I've been considering maybe looking into bread machines again, but the last time I bought one a few years ago, it produced the same dense, heavy bread I'm ending up with now. So I returned that bread machine. Considering I can get loaves of fresh Italian bread from my store for 99 cents that are far superior to what I am ending up with when I try to make them myself, I have a hard time justifying paying $250 for a decent bread machine. I could buy 250 loaves for the price of that, and that doesn't even include the cost of the yeast and flour to make my own.
I have to say that my first ever bread that i made was challah bread and i think that is one of the simplest....
This homemade bread has a long history in our family, actually my husband's family. When he was young, his mother tried baking the morning bread called pandesal. It was like bricks. Some decades ago, his brother bought a big oven for the same thing - baking morning bread for a business. Sadly, the same bricks were produced. Maybe there's something wrong in their recipe. But I wouldn't want to try even if we have an oven now because it is cheaper to just buy from the bakery in the morning.
I used to love baking bread at home, as much as I like to bake and decorated cakes, but certainly it is a time-consuming activity, and I have no longer enough time to devote for this. Even though, I like to bake from time to time, and I have spent some time finding easy-to-do recipes. I don't like the idea of a bread making machine because of its price, but sometimes I feel it might be worth investing to buy one, but I'm not yet certain that making one's own bread saves money, because time certainly doesn't.
I'm like Eagle910 and love to buy breads at the store or bakery. I love the smell of baking goods and when I pass by our local bake shops I enjoy the smells all the time. But to bake bread at home, no for I'd just rather wait for sales and get a nice loaf of bread backed locally.
I've baked bread before. It's not really that cheap. I do it because it tastes better and there's a feeling of accomplishment that comes with making your own food. If you're trying to save money, it's better to just spend $1 on a loaf of Italian or French bread from the Walmart bakery and spend your afternoon doing something more profitable.
if i had to guess I would say yes, because traditionally making things at home is just cheaper, but I am really not sure in this case. You can get bread for pretty cheap, and it does seem like a little bit of a hassle to make your own. If it ends up saving some money then I am all for it, and I would assume that it tastes better if you know what you are doing, so certainly it is something worth exploring.
I make bread at home, but I do not make it with a machine. I make it by hand. I have a recipe that makes two loaves so I help out a friend with the extra loaf since we only need one. I can spend about $25 or so on supplies and then make about 16 loaves with it all. So that is 8 weeks worth of bread for two people. It comes out to like $1.57 which is about half of what I pay for honey wheat bread at the store. So, while I'm not saving much, the house smells good, nothing beats home made bread, and I know that there aren't chemical and preservatives in it. Plus, you can be crazy and turn it into other types of bread like cinnamon raisin.
