The frugal gourmet

[oblivia]

Originally Posted by Bit

I really want to make our bread, but I have to find a bread machine first. My wrists can't handle kneading anymore, and after the fiasco with the pasta machine, I'm not willing to take a chance on a second-rate bread machine. That means it's probably not on the list until next year's tax refund.

Sparx makes all our bread for home, all our pizza dough, day to day bread, buns, rolls, etc. We just don't buy it anymore and it has saved us a bucket of $ and I've now totally lost my taste for commercial breads because they taste very bland and artificial now by comparison.. but we started off by craigslist hunting for a used but good quality machine.

You can find some AMAZING deals on bread machines, used, because people are often given them as giffts or buy them and then just never get around to using them. I managed to get Sparx's a couple years ago for like $50 and it was a nice one that makes horizontal loaves...

Although... ultimately I could have gotten a totally different one because Sparx never bakes it in the machine. What She does that really seems to make it fun is she uses the machine for the mixing and kneading, and then unplugs the machine and lets it rise a bit, then pulls it out and shapes it into whatever (baguettes, buns, rolls, loaves, rounds), and if she wants it to have a really crusty outside she sprays the crap out of the dough with a bunch of water (she always mists it lightly while it rises to keep it moist but for a crusty/chewy crust, get it pretty darn damp) and then bakes it. She's finally perfected focaccia which is pretty easy and once you get the hang of it is one of the easiest ones....

We now buy 10kg (20lb?) bags of flour for like $7, and that plus sugar (or honey), yeast, a bit of salt, bit of oil, some powdered milk for white breads - gives them a nice texture) and we figured that our cost per loaf is something ridiculous like $.58-$.60 and omg is it yummy.

Once the bread has cooled, we put it into a plain white kitchen garbage bag to keep it from getting dry/hard too quickly - and it freezes well too (but we have a tiny freezer). LOL