Bread! Tasty, Healthy - and cheap too!

Beautiful, tasty, healthy - and cheap too!

I have, for some time now been an advocate of making my own bread. Ever since I decided to overcome my fear of the 'alchemy' of turning four ingredients, including water, into something, not only edible, but delicious too, I have loved the process of converting flour, yeast, salt and water into a loaf. In a recent blog, the BBC decided to see not only how tasty and efficaceous a loaf can be, but also how cheap.

David Cameron doesn't know the price of a value loaf from Tesco because he bakes his own bread. Is his way cheaper, asks Denise Winterman.

Asked the cost of a "value sliced white bread loaf at Tesco this morning", Prime Minister David Cameron said he didn't know because he makes his own bread in his £100 breadmaker using flour costing about £4.40 for a 1.5kg bag.

But is the prime minister on to something? If you have a breadmaker and all the basic ingredients at home, can you make a white loaf for 47p or less?

Seeing as it's a Tesco value loaf in question, let's assume all your ingredients have come from Tesco and are the cheapest available.

The workings out

• Tesco Strong White Bread Flour £0.53 a kg - 30p
• Tesco Fast Action Dried Yeast £11.61 a kg - 6p
• Tesco Table Salt £0.39 a kg - 0.4p
• Tesco Organic Rapeseed Oil £0.30p a 100ml - 6p

Figures calculated to the nearest penny - apart from salt.

Tom Herbert is a fifth generation baker who won Young Baker of the Year and is one half of Channel Four's Fabulous Baker Boys. He says his recipe for a classic white loaf is the most downloaded off his website. It also weighs roughly 800g, the same as the sliced white in question.

According to the recipe you need 560g of strong white flour, 10g of salt (Herbert specifies sea salt but you only have Tesco's cheaper table salt), 5g of dried yeast, 20ml of rapeseed oil and 300ml of warm water.

So does it come in at under 47p? Yes, 42.4p in fact, with the prices of the ingredients (apart from salt) calculated to the nearest penny.

The taste, smell and quality of the homemade loaf will be "incomparable" to the shop-bought one, says Herbert.

"You'll also feel great having made something with your own hands and your home will smell lovely."

I couldn't agree more - and I would just love to see more people making their own loaves. I have written some previous pieces if you'd like a go:

Here

Here

and Here

I sincerely hope you'll have a go. It is fun and worth the little bit of effort and time that are required - I promise.

Enriched Doughs the Easy Way...

Completed cinnamon rolls...

Enriched doughs are normal bread doughs but with the additional ingredients of melted butter and sugar. These doughs are used to make bakes such as Belgian buns, Chelsea buns, pastries, danishes and cinnamon rolls...

Making these doughs the easy way is to use a bread machine on its dough setting to mix the ingredients and give them their initial proving. It takes the time element required to mix and kneed the dough away and, as most people have a machine but seldom use the dough setting, it might help make more use of a semi redundant machine and your time. 

By using a bread machine you can bypass much of the work, especially the kneading, by pouring the ingredients in a specific order into the machines pan.  This order ensures that the mix is not jeopardised by having the yeast and salt too close together and also ensures that the dough is well kneaded and given its initial rising in a safe and warm environment

Covered for the second proving..

You can then decide what to make,  a decision which don't I have used it to make a perfect cinnamon buns with a additional cinnamon and sugar added to the rolled out pastry here on the list of ingredients

Ingredients

150 mls semi skimmed milk
3 medium eggs beaten
75 grams butter, melted
450 grams strong white bread flour
2 tsp salt
50  grams caster sugar
1 sachet of fast yeast or 7 - 10 gms
100 grams of sultanas or raisins
50 grams of fine soft brown sugar
cinnamon powder to sprinkle over
Icing sugar and water to make glacé icing or use fondant icing

Ok, the ingredients go into the bread pan in this order:

The milk, the whisked eggs, the melted butter, allowed to cool slightly, then half the flour.

Now add the sugar, the salt and the rest of the flour. Top of with the yeast and start the machine.

When the dough program has finished, remove the proved dough and knock it back before rolling it out on a lightly (bread) floured surface. roll it out gradually until it's about 1 cm thick and forms a nice rectangular shape - you are going to roll it swiss roll stylee later - and sprinkle it all over with the sultanas, sugar and cinnamon - you can be as frugal or as extravagant as you wish with this part.

Roll the dough up and cut the roll into sections - about 10 large buns to about 15 or 16 small ones.

Place on a tray and cover with oiled cling film and leave to rise until they are light and fluffy and sticking together.

Place into a pre-heated oven (190 - 200 degrees) and bake for about 20-25 minutes until they are well baked and a lovely golden brown colour.

Mix your icing sugar with just enough water to allow it to be barely drizzled over all the buns, thickly. Or warm up the fondant icing and pipe over the buns.

Enjoy.