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.