Bread, rising.
I’ve always loved to bake. As a child, I loved to bake sweets. As a teen, I got into the habit of baking those Amish Friendship Breads (you know, the ones with the million starters that always seemed to end up in my freezer). As a college student, I was given a pizza dough recipe by a friend of mine, and it instantly became my favorite (in fact, it’s still the one I use today).
But recently, I received a new recipe from another friend of mine (she found it on one of the sites I’ve linked to on the right), and it has launched me into a new and exciting world: Bread-making.
There’s just something so rustic, so self-reliant, about baking bread. I knew I had to give it a go right away. So on my next trip to Safeway, I picked up some extra flour and some new yeast and got started.
Some bread recipes can be a bear to make the first few times – so many ingredients, so many rises, so many steps in between. But this English Muffin Bread is no-knead and contains only a very few ingredients, all of which are easy to keep on hand. It took me about 10 minutes’ worth of work to measure and mix everything together before letting the two pans of dough rise in their pans for an hour, and after another half-hour of baking, I had two fresh loaves waiting for me!
I dug into the first one right away, using it for my sandwiches all that week. The second one I put immediately in the freezer (homemade bread doesn’t keep as well as store-bought, so if you’re not going to be using it straightaway, it’s best to freeze for the time being). This week, as I began to select my lunches for work, I pulled the bread back out and placed it in the fridge to thaw – I’d say it’s even better after having been frozen for a few days!
(And yes, I topped the bread with peanut butter and my homemade jam! :))
So, it’s easy, it’s fun, and it’s tasty. But is it frugal? Let’s see.
Flour: $1.99/bag ($0.50/loaf)
Yeast: $2.49/three ($0.83/loaf)
GRAND TOTAL: $4.49 … or $1.33 per loaf.
Now, you can’t beat that! If I’m VERY lucky I can get a loaf at Safeway for $1.00, but it’s usually at least $1.50. And lower-quality, too!
So I think I’m going to keep up the bread-making habit. Since this recipe yields two loaves, I only have to bake them once every two weeks to keep my lunches moving along. It’s a very small commitment for a tasty payoff!
(And thank you, RayRay, for turning me on to this recipe in the first place!)
:)