Light wheat bread recipe

Like many recipes this one was completely created by accident.  I was making my typical sweet white bread recipe but unfortunately halfway through I realized we were short a cup of white flour.  Thinking fast, I replaced it with a cup of whole wheat.  Not only did it make the bread for nutritious and was much more flavorful at the same time so this has now become my staple recipe for bread.

Simple Light Wheat Bread Dough Recipe

• 1 cups warm water
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 tablespoon of active yeast
• 1/8 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 cups of while flour

Directions:

• Dissolve sugar in warm water, followed by yeast in power mixer.  Allow to proof until contents looks like some light brown cream foam. 
• Add salt and oil and mix to combine.
• Switch to hook attachment and add flour until dough does not stick to your finger when you touch it. 
• Let the hook do some of the kneading work for you by letting it run for 4-5 minutes on a medium/low setting.
• Knead by hand for 3 minutes or until smooth (adding flour if it still sticks to your hands)
• Cover with damp cloth and allow to rise until it doubles in size. (about an hour depending on temperature of your kitchen)
• Punch down bread dough and place into well oiled 9X5 inch loaf pans allowing to rise for 30 minutes.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes
• While still hot baste the top of bread with butter.
• Once cool, if there is any left by then, slice up and place into a gallon Ziploc bag.

Homemade pumpkin bread recipe

After having an abundance of cooked pumpkin after over purchasing on a couple of organic pie pumpkins I decided to make some pumpkin bread, here is the recipe I have had great success with.

Sausage Bread Recipe

 

This recipe has been a Christmas morning tradition in our family for several years now.  We simply prepare this the night before and put in the oven in the morning while the kids are opening presents.  Great with a glass of orange juice

Sausage Bread Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 lb loaf of bread dough (I prefer fresh, though frozen is also good
• 1 lb sausage
• 1 egg
• 3/4 teaspoon basil
• 3/4 teaspoon oregano
• 1-1/2 cup shredded jack cheese (we also like pre shredded “Italian Cheese” blend)
• 1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese

Directions

• Brown sausage stirring frequently to ensure meat crumbles into small pieces.  Remove as much fat as possible (too much fat can make bottom of bread greasy.
• Let cooked sausage cool and add basil, oregano, cheese, and egg and mix thoroughly.
• On floured surface roll out bread dough to about 1/4 in rectangle.  The original recipe says to fill with sausage and create into a jelly roll (donut shape).  Though we normally just make into a regular loaf.  The down side is you get a couple ends pieces with little or no sausage, but also gives a couple pieces of plain white bread for our youngest daughter who only likes sausage in link form.
• Either way you make it, place it on a cookie sheet and add 1/2 inch slashes every 1.5 inches or so and add egg wash (1 egg + tablespoon water beaten) with pastry brush if you want a harder outside crust or skip if you want a softer one (our personal preference)

• Cover with plastic wrap and let rise (about 30 minutes) and bake at 350F for 30 minutes and enjoy.

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.

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.

Basic White Bread Dough Recipe: Store versus Homemade

My youngest daughter (5 years old) loves to bake and one of our favorite things to bake on Sundays is fresh baked bread.  Now I doubt there are not too many people that could argue that fresh baked bread/rolls from your oven beats store bought bread, though I was curious if I am actually saving money baking it myself.  For now I am going to tackle the cost comparison of bread dough and cover the actual cost of baking in the next post.

The cost of materials completely depends on the recipe being made, so here is the one I am working with:

Simple White Bread Dough Recipe

• 4 cups warm water
• 1 1/3 cup white sugar
• 3 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons of active yeast
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 12 cups of flour

Directions:

• Dissolve sugar in warm water, followed by yeast in power mixer.  Allow to proof until contents looks like some light brown cream foam. 
• Add salt and oil and 6 cups of flour one cup of a time. 
• Switch to hook attachment and add flour until dough does not stick to your finger when you touch it. 
• Cover with damp cloth and allow to rise until it doubles in size. 
• Punch down bread dough and divide into fourths and place into well oiled 9X5 inch loaf pans allowing to rise for 30 minutes (or freeze for use later)
• Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes
  
  

The Contender – Store Bought

The competition: Rhodes Frozen Bread Dough, $3.49 for 3 frozen loaves or approximately $1.16 per loaf

Ingredients: Unbleached Enriched White Flour (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Ferrous Sulfate or Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Yeast, Soybean Oil and/or Canola Oil, Salt, Malt, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Yeast Nutrients (Calcium Sulfate, Ammonium Chloride), Abscorbic Acid, Enzyme.

The Challenger - Homemade

To be fair I probably should have use the same ingredients as the contender buy being fresh out of Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate and Ammonium Chloride I went with the recipe above.

Here are the costs of making the bread dough yourself:

Ingredient	Amount	Cost
Water	4 cups	$ 0.001
Sugar	1 1/3 cups	$ 0.426
Yeast	3 tablespoons	$ 1.339
Salt	3 teaspoons	$ 0.020
Vegetable Oil	1/2 cup	$ 0.210
Flour	12 cups	$ 1.497

 

Now given I used an electric mixer but given it was used for maybe 10 minutes at 35 watts the cost is definitely minimal.  The total cost of the ingredients for this recipe is $3.49, given the above recipe creates 4 loaves of bread this equates to a total cost of $0.87 per loaf.  So in the end making the bread dough yourself will save you $0.23 per loaf or about $24 a year assuming you consume a couple of loafs bread per week. 

It does take about 2 hours to make the bread (though much of this is rising) on the same side frozen bread dough take a few hours to defrost and rise.  Without a motorized mixer mixing and kneading your homemade bread dough is quite a workout, this one could be a close call. 

The Decision…

	Store bought	Homemade
Price
Taste
Difficulty

This one was a close one though homemade still came out on top.  With its superior taste and you still have to defrost and let the dough rise there is a decent effort even for the frozen bread dough.  Plus my daughter likes adding the ingredients the most anyway so either way we will be making the homemade option.