Here are 10 easy tips that make baking homemade bread easier, including some of our favorite recipes! Using these ideas, you can save lots of time and money making tasty bread and desserts!
10 Homemade Bread Baking Tips
- Buy yeast in bulk. Split it with a friend. Buying in bulk uses less packaging which is less expensive and better for the environment. Yeast is $2.70 a pound bulk compared to $25.00 a pound buying the little packets. If you don’t have someone to split it with, buy bulk anyway. Even if half is wasted, it is still less expensive than the small packets. Extra yeast may be frozen for longer storage.
- When cutting bread, freeze the crumbs in a freezer bag. Use when a recipe calls for bread crumbs.
- Save and freeze dried bread slices and heels. When you need bread crumbs, grind them in the blender or food processor. Toss with seasonings and melted margarine, or use in stuffing, croutons, or bread pudding.
- Buy bread at the day-old bread store and freeze all of it even if you plan to use it in just a few days. At .25-.39 a loaf, you can’t make it as cheap. Usually sweet rolls and tortillas can also be found at the .39 cent table.
- When you are baking something in the oven and you are using a burner on the range at the same time, use the burner that has the vent for the oven. The heat from the oven will cause the burner to use less energy, thus saving money.
- Use powdered milk for baking. Pour some in a small container and leave in your “baking center” with the rest of your baking supplies.
- To check and see if the baking powder in your pantry is still active, stir 1 teaspoon into one‑third cup hot water. There should be immediate vigorous bubbling. If no bubbling occurs or bubbling is sporadic, the baking powder is past its prime.
- Use a cutting board with a no-slip pad underneath to knead bread.
- To glaze bread: For a dark, shiny glaze, brush on 1 beaten egg yolk and bake as usual.
For a shine but no color, brush on 1 egg white mixed with 1 tablespoon water.
- Make roll dough and put in pans. Cover and freeze. When you leave for church, leave rolls at room temperature. When you return they will have risen and be ready to bake for Sunday dinner. Then you have fresh rolls. Do not freeze longer than 3 weeks.
Here are the most popular homemade bread recipes on our website. They are very simple and your family will love them!
90 Minute Rolls
Farm House Bread
Homemade Cinnamon Rolls
You can make EASY and delicious meals at home in less time than eating out! You’ll save a ton of money on food and your family will thank you!
Click here to get our Dining On A Dime Cookbooks 25% Off NOW! They’re filled with tasty recipes and tips to make your life easier!
Our bread thrift store sells bread for a $1.00 a loaf if you buy 3 for whole wheat bread. Do you think it would be any cheaper to make it yourself?
I am so glad you are asking that question and thinking things through. So often we jump on the band wagon for something with out really checking things out to see it it will work or pay for us to do. To be honest Jane every few years I sit down, add up the cost of my ingredients and for where I live it has never been cheaper to make my own bread. Other things that people don’t always take into consideration too is the electricity for using the stove and things like if you make it in the summer I can go often with out using my a/c but if I am baking then I will have to turn my a/c on which adds more to the cost.
Also I had to take into consideration could I make more or save more money with that 30-45 mins. (including clean up) it would take me to make that bread. What I mean by that is we only have so many hours a day so I have to use them wisely.Let’s say I might save $.50 a loaf of bread that means I would have a savings of $1.00 for that 45 mins. I spent baking my own bread. Would it have been better for me to spend 5 mins. sewing a button or 10 mins. fixing a hem of a $40 blouse so I don’t have to replace it. I have now spent 5 mins. worth of work and saved $40 compared to 45 mins. and saved $1. Besides learning to save we need to learn where to spend our time so we can get the most and best savings.
So to be honest I have found the savings not to be that great for me personally. Now that doesn’t mean I don’t bake homemade bread and like doing it but I do it as a treat and for pleasure not to save. Oh one last thing. I remember as a young mom deciding to do nothing but make homemade bread all the time and learning a lesson really quick. It was nice knowing what I put in my bread and all so that may have been healthier but what happened was my family loved it so much that they ate about 3 times the amount they normally did. When you eat more then you should there is weight gain and other medical problems plus I spent more on bread because they were eating so much. So as you can see there is a lot to factor in.
a word of encouragement to those who would like to enjoy making their own bread; it’s less $, and there is much room for personalizing your ingredients.
we purchased a bread machine to use for just the dough cycle, that seems to be the easiest and simplest way for us. the one we bought was <$60, altho you can sometimes pick them up at yard cells for much less.
the machine dough cycle method still gives you a chance to get immersed in the bread making process, just with a little assist
if you don't have luck with your first few batches of bread, please don't give up; perhaps talk to a friend who bakes bread for advice or hook up with a cooking/baking forum online – like Living on a Dime :) the satisfaction of homemade bread is well worth the effort
It would really be a great help if you would share some gluten free recipes or tips. I tried making coconut four bread and it was a disaster.
Thanks
We try to put in a few recipes for certain diet needs but there are so many special needs now we could never cover them all. I have told a story often before about the woman e mailing us and being upset because she had to be on a diabetic, egg free, milk free, fat free… and several other free things and said she felt we should have more recipes for her special needs and was so upset because we didn’t. Just a few hours later we got a call from another women who had all the same special diet needs as the first woman and she said was calling to thank us for our recipes because they were so easy to adapt them to all of her special needs. Since then we try to keep our recipes for what I call “normal” diets but simple enough to be adapted.
I used to bake bread with my mom when I was younger, but I have completely forgotten how to do it. I am really glad that I found these tips. I never realized that you should check to see if your baking powder is still active. I never realized that it could actually expire.