Making your own frozen bread dough

The preparation of bread can be quite time consuming, with our current busy schedules it can be impossible to have the time to prepare bread dough from scratch as frequently as you want.  To help with this I normally make twice as much dough as I need and freeze the rest.  The process to make this successful is pretty easy but I will walk through it quickly.

First prepare your favorite bread dough recipe as you normally would (mixing, kneading, rising, etc)  After the first time the bread has risen take the bread you want to freeze and knead and separate into equal sized balls.

One thing I like to do is to simply take these and place them into individual sandwich bags and push out any excess air.

 

Then add these bags to a larger freezer bag and remove individual bags when you have an inkling for some fresh baked bread.  One other option is to create several one inch balls and add to single layer within a freezer bag.  These can be defrosted and used to make fresh baked rolls

Baking bread with frozen bread dough

Take the frozen bread dough and place into a greased bread pan.  Spray top of frozen bread dough and top with plastic wrap.  Let the bread dough defrost and rise (6 – 8 hours) and then remove the plastic wrap and bake for 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees and enjoy.

Benefits of homemade cooking – Less Waste

When I starting writing my about me post or the typical blog mission statement about its purpose and what and why I was starting this blog I had to start myself a little on the “Whys” since I was getting a little long winded.  Instead I decided to break this up into a few smaller posts about the various topics.  The first of these is less waste.

Now this can be taken two ways one on the environmental side due to the fact that by eliminating the increased number of packaged foods there should be a direct correlation to the number of items going into the trash. 

The other side is reducing food waste.  Unfortunately when you go to the store food comes in predefined quantities, if you only need four tortillas for your meal the other eight unless you are creative with other meals will end up in the trash which is not exactly good for the environment and your pocketbook. 

When you control the amount of food you prepare, you can directly reduce your waste output and save even more money as detailed in my Homemade versus Store Bought series since you are only producing what you are consuming.  But given the difference in taste so far we have had zero waste from my homemade experimentation.

Flour Fajita/Taco/Gordita Tortilla Recipe: Store versus Homemade

 

Our family was feeling like some tacos and decided to take my first attempt at making these from scratch, but figured it would be a good opportunity to going a little more homemade.

The Contender – Store Bought

The competition: Mission 6 inch Flour Tortilla, $3.39 for 8 tortillas

Ingredients: Enriched Bleached Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, Vegetable Shortening (Soybean Oil, Hydrogenated Soybean Oil), Contains 2% or Less of: Sugar, Salt, Leavening (Sodium Bicarbonate, Sodium Aluminum Sulfate, Corn Starch, Monocalcium Phosphate and/or Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Calcium Sulfate), Calcium Propionate and Sorbic Acid and/or Potassium Sorbate (Preservative), Distilled Monoglycerides, Wheat Starch, Amylase, Tricalcium Phosphate, Cellulose Gum, Dough Conditioners (Fumaric Acid, Sodium Metabisulfite and/or Mono- and Diglycerides).

The Challenger – Homemade

I had a failed attempt at making burrito sized tortilla so went with what seemed be a recipe that required much of the skills I appear to be lacking.

Soft Chewy Flour Tortilla (Fajita/Taco/Gordita) Recipe

2 cups all-purpose flour

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vegetable oil

3/4 cup milk

Directions: Add dry ingredients to mixer and set to low speed.  Add wet ingredients to separate bowl, whish briefly and slowly add wet ingredients to mixer.  If the dough is still sticky when you touch it add about a teaspoon of flour at a time until it no longer sticks to your fingers.

Knead the dough for about 2-3 minutes and place ball of dough on a plate and cover with mixing bowl and let it “rest” for 10 minutes.

 

After the dough “rests” cut the dough into 8 equal pieces.  I did what seemed easiest to me:

• Cut dough in half: 2 pieces
• Cut those two pieces in half: 4 pieces
• Cut those 4 pieces in half: 8 pieces.

Below you can see my 5 year old demonstrating this technique.

 

Next roll the pieces into balls and let them “rest” on that same plate for 20 more minutes.

 

Use a rolling pin (or 3/4 wooden dowel if you happen to have one) as thin as you can make them.  Don’t worry they will thicken up when you cook them

The recommended method is to use a quality dry cast iron skilled on gas heat.  Not having either of those, I went with my pancake griddle.  Which from my first try I have a recommendation set the griddle to its highest setting.  Otherwise by the time it starts to brown you will have some baked tortilla chips instead of tortilla shells.  Though my daughters loved “my mistake” with a little butter.

Once they lightly browned, flip over and cook until the second side is brown.  If you skilled is pretty warm this should take less than 30 seconds.  Overall the cooking time was about 10 minutes.

Ingredient	Amount	Cost
Flour	2 cups	$ 0.249
Baking Powder	1.5 teaspoons	$ 0.048
Milk	3/4 cup	$ 0.140
Salt	1 teaspoons	$ 0.007
Vegetable Oil	2 teaspoons	$ 0.017
Electricity	510 watts	$0.030
Total Cost		$ 0.492

The Decision…

	Store Bought	Homemade
Low Price
Great Taste
Low Prep Time

So just over $0.49 to make the same number of tortillas as the $3.39 store bought, that is over 6 times more.  To date this is definitely the best cost savings and I must say the taste between the two is not even comparable to the nice warm tortillas off the griddle.  Homemade is the hands down winner!

Basic White Bread: Store versus Homemade

In the last post, we proved that it is cheaper to make you own bread dough versus using frozen bread dough though a big question still remains, how much cost does the baking cost add to the overall cost. 

The Contender – Store Bought

The competition: Safeway Butter Top White Bread, $1.50 per loaf

Ingredients: Enriched Malted Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Iron [Ferrous Sulfate], Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Yeast, Canola Oil and/or Soybean Oil, Salt, Contains 2 Percent or Less of Each of the Following: Butter (Made from Milk and/or Cream, Salt and Annatto [For Color]), Calcium Sulfate (Source of Calcium), Whey (Milk), Dough Conditioners (May Contain One or More of the Following: Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Ethoxylated Mono- and Diglycerides, Monocalcium Phosphate, Datem, Soy Flour), Mono- and Diglycerides, Calcium Propionate (Added to Retard Spoilage), Natural and Artificial Flavor, Soy Lecithin.

The Challenger - Homemade

As we mentioned before the cost of a loaf of bread dough was $1.16 per loaf for frozen bread dough and $0.87 per loaf for homemade bread dough.

The time to preheat and bake 2 loafs of bread is 37 minutes and given the cost to operate an average electric range is $0.24 per hour, so for 37 minutes that would be a little less than $0.15 for two loafs of bread. 

Given the above it would cost $0.94 per loaf for homemade bread dough and $1.24 per loaf using frozen bread dough.

The Decision…

	Store Bought	Homemade
Price
Taste
Difficulty

Though the price difference is not real significant between the two it is hard to even compare the taste between store bought bread baked in your oven.  Though in this case I used a simple white bread recipe, baking higher end breads would definitely result in more savings as well as improved taste.