When you look at the price of bread, cakes, pastries, and other baked goods in the supermarket it soon becomes clear that they are pretty additive laden and often expensive.
A simple loaf of bread needs nothing more than flour, water, yeast, and salt yet a supermarket loaf can run to 20+ ingredients. A home made cake is a delicious and indulgent treat for the whole family, yet the supermarket version often has colourants and other ingredients that are unnecessary and not something you would ever add to your own baking.
Why should you home bake?
The good thing with home baking is you can do so far cheaper than the supermarket counterparts, and home made is tastier and healthier too.
Home baking isn’t difficult and even a beginner can manage to whip up a tasty loaf of bread. There is also no need for expensive gadgets such as mixers or bread machines – although if you do have one they are great for cutting time in the kitchen. Really all you need is a large mixing bowl, a loaf tin, your ingredients, and a little time and enthusiasm.
What are the costs of home baking?
The equipment for home baking can cost as little as £5.00 and you can make this back in no time.
When it comes to ingredients there are huge variations in price. For the tightest budgets a 1.5kg bag of plain or self raising flour for cakes can be bought for £0.45 (January 2016, Lidl) and white or wholemeal bread flour for £0.75. A 1.5kg bag of bread flour is enough to make 3 loaves of bread, and the added salt and yeast is only a matter of pennies more.
You do need to factor in cooking costs, but by baking alongside other cooking you really can keep these costs down too.
These articles look at how to make the most of home baking, whether you fancy a simple sandwich loaf, wholemeal sourdough boules or a rich and decadent chocolate cake.
Sourdough Baking
