Baking your own bread is one of the best possible ways to save on food costs. Bread is made from the simplest and cheapest of ingredients but marked up like crazy by commercial manufacturers. Buying a good loaf of nutritious bread will cost you about $3.00 in Brooklyn and probably even more in Manhattan. Baking your own bread can cost you only $1.00.
Its delicious and addictive ubiquity in U.S. restaurants, markets, and homes gives bread a sort of mysterious allure for the common person. It's left us all convinced that it can only be made well by expert artisan bakers (hello $5.00 loaf) or huge factories (blech.) My impoverished friends, you have been duped by the Bakery Industrial Complex! As I realized in this week's baking adventure, the truth is that bread is e-a-s-y. The ingredients are basically just flour. yeast. and water. What?! I know.
Of course, if you want to get all fancy pants you can throw in some oats, seeds, honey, brown sugar...the possibilities abound, but they also will cost you. And this is a recession dammit, so I'm giving you the cheapest bread recipe out there, and you will love it.
Here's what you'll need:
A cup of warm water ... $0
2 tablespoons of oil ... $.17
3 teaspoon salt* ... $.05
* here i'm tripling the amount of salt called for in the recipe I used because the judges unanimously felt that our bread came out a bit bland.
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour ... $.40 @ $4.69 for a 5 lb. bag
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour* ...$.40 @ $4.69 for a 5 lb. bag
*(Maybe next time I'll try a 100% whole wheat, or even a multigrain, but I wanted to keep it extra easy for my first time. Sue me.)
2 teaspoons instant active dry yeast ... $1.10
Total cost: $2.12 for two loaves, or $1.06 each.
But even if a few loaves of bread a month (or a week if you are buying for a family) isn't a budgetary burden, reasons abound for baking at home. One big one for me is avoiding the chemical preservatives in commercial brands. Before writing this very post I searched, in my boundless and noble journalistic integrity, far and wide within the kitchen of my Brooklyn apartment for a loaf of commercial bread so as to accurately report its price. To my horror I found half of one that I had bought at least a month ago, chillin on an abandoned shelf and looking exactly as it did the day it was born: no mold, barely even stale. What must they be putting in there to defy the laws of nature in this way?!??
Answer: dicalcium phosphate, diammonium phosphate, calcium propionate. Mmmmm.
Here is the recipe:
1. Pour warm water into a small ceramic bowl and add the yeast, but do not stir. Set aside.
2. Add the oil and salt to the water and yeast mixture; mix well.
3. Add the 1.5 cups of white flour and stir. Once incorporated, add the 1.5 cups of whole wheat flour. Stir until incorporated.
4.To knead the dough, flatten the dough and fold it over, pressing on it with your hands. Turn the dough sidewise and do the same thing. Flatten, fold, press, turn, flatten, fold, press, turn, a few times.
5. After kneading, roll the dough into a ball and put it in a greased bowl, rolling the dough around in the bowl so a thin film of oil covers the dough. Then cover the bowl with a cloth or paper towels.
6. Let it rise in a warm place for about an hour. It should double in size.
7. When you come back to it, "Punch down" the dough. Apparently when they say "punch down," though, they really mean smush down, judging by how quickly my mentor took over the punching after seeing me let loose on it. After its smushed down, leave it and let it rise again until almost double, for about another 30 minutes.
8. Divide the dough into two equal parts and let it rest for 10 minutes. Shape into loaves and put into greased pans. Let it rise again, until sides of dough reach the pan and the top is well rounded (30 minutes to 1 hour).
9. Bake the loaves at 425 degrees for about 25 to 30 minutes. The loaf pans should not touch each other or the sides of the oven or the heat won't circulate well enough to bake them evenly. To test for doneness, tap the crust, it should sound hollow. If is doesn't, bake a few minutes more.
When the bread is done baking, immediately remove the loaves from the pans. Set on wire racks or across the edges of the loaf pans so that air can circulate around it. Let it cool at least 20 minutes before slicing and eating, or the inside will stay dense and doughy. (I personally love it that way, but apparently that's weird.)
