Homemade Bread

We've had a busy day between helping get my sister and her family one step closer to getting settled into their home before the baby comes and cleaning up garage sale stuff (it's crazy how you can sell so much but still go home with a car full!).

fresh bread sliced and ready for use

My homemade item today is bread ... lately I have been letting the bread machine (which is a loaner, thanks mom) do all the work! I absolutely love homemade bread and doing it all by hand tastes even better than the bread machine, but the bread machine is a very close second. I learned how to make bread with my sister a good ten years ago when a wonderful lady from her church spent an entire Saturday teaching us the ins-and-outs of bread making AND sent us home with her stash of bread recipes! SO GOOD!

Now bread is one of those things that takes time and I usually don't have it, but I wish I could do it 100% of the time because is tastes so much better and costs WAY less. It takes at most 5 minutes to get the bread machine started and it's done in 2 and a half hours. When I am doing good, I will throw the ingredients in while I am fixing dinner and then it will be finished before bed. For us, each loaf lasts about 3 to 4 days between breakfast and lunches, so a couple days a week is all I have to commit to getting the bread machine going!

Cost Comparison: approximately $0.40 per 32 oz. bread machine loaf VS. $0.85 per 20 oz. Aldi loaf

It comes out to about the same amount of slices since homemade bread is more dense than store bought which makes is more than a 50% discount. When you eat as much bread as we do, this adds up fast! I love the fact if I am not due for a store run, I can throw my ingredients into the bread machine and avoid a trip just for bread. Also, I haven't experiment with the bread machine too much yet, but there is a recipe for bagels, pretzels, and so many other things.



I just started a fresh loaf and will upload a pic later when it's complete!