Favouritist totally is a word right?! Haha it should be, because it perfectly describes this recipe for white bread. Look at it… I mean, I wish you could smell the freshly baked bread through your screens.
For those who follow me on social media, you’ll be well aware of our obsession with making our own bread. It is often featured on my instastories haha.
The whole breadmaking journey started back in May after I managed to find a bread maker on Gumtree for $50. Total bargain I thought (for those interested it is a Breville Bakers Oven) and so I got straight to baking. Ha there was quuuuuuite a few dud loaves in those first few weeks because well I was a bit stubborn… I refused to spend more money on special bread flour.
Let me paint a cost picture here for a minute… 2kg of plain flour from Woolworths cost $1.50 while 2kg of specific bread flour costs at least $4. Yeeeeeah I wasn’t keen to spend more money on something that I was sure I could make work myself. But like I said before the first quite a few loaves were extremely dense and completely sunken in the middle. After extensive research it turns out I needed to add something to my plain flour to make it more like bread flour. The magic ingredient was gluten flour!
Now I won’t bore you with the chemistry behind making bread, but essentially the gluten flour essentially helps the bread rise. You only needed to add 1 teaspoon per 1 cup of plain flour but it makes all the difference. so when I found some at a local whole food store for $6 for 1kg and because you only use so little each time, it has lasted us forever!!! So yeah, the cost is still waaaay ahead of using premixed bread flour #winning
Okay for those interested, it’s time for Jake’s favourite part haha… number crunching the cost per loaf.
- We buy our plain flour in 2kg bags for $1.50. This recipe requires 2.5 cups of flour (approx 325g) which equates to approx $0.24
- We buy our gluten flour in 1kg bags for $6.00. This recipe requires 3 teaspoons of gluten flour (approx 7.5g) which equates to $0.05.
- We buy our yeast in a 280g tin for $4.40. This recipe requires 2 teaspoons of yeast (approx 6g) which equates to $0.09.
- We buy our white sugar in 2kg bags for $1.79. This recipe requires 3 tablespoons of white sugar (approx 42g) which equates to $0.04.
- We buy our table salt in 1kg bags for $0.90. This recipe requires 1 teaspoon of salt (approx 5.7g) which equates to $0.005 (yep half a cent!)
- We buy our vegetable oil in 2L containers for $4.50. This recipe requires 1/4 cup of vegetable oil (approx 62.5 ml) which equates to $0.14.
Meaning that the total cost of this 1kg loaf of bread is approximately 57c per loaf. Obviously not including water cost or electricity. But goodness this is cheap! And the smell alone, I’d pay an extra dollar for easily!!!
Well worth the initial $50 investment in my books. Happy baking!