The question is, Is baking bread cheaper than buying it? Taking everything into consideration such as ingredients, the cost of cooking and your time and just picking a recipe at random we see if it is cheaper making your own bread.
Of course, there are more advantages than just financial. However, we wanted to see for ourselves if cooking a loaf of bread would be any cheaper than buying in the shops
At first glance, this may seem like an easy question to answer. However, upon further investigation, there are many factors to consider.
When I first started to bake bread the actual financial cost was a huge consideration. It had to be cheaper. It was that simple. Deciding on whether to invest in a bread maker had the same criteria. Many conversations with my sister later and some (very) rough maths and we decided that it was.
It is difficult to work out as you need a basis for comparison. In the supermarkets, you can get really cheap white bread from 40 pence, with the average supermarkets own brand is about 75 pence. The better brands are between £1 and about £1.40. None of these come from the “from the bakery” types of bread which is what you would compare this loaf too.
The Cost of Making a Straightforward Plain Loaf of Bread
Below is a step by step guide to the ingredients and cost of making your own bread to see if it is cheaper to make it yourself. I try to make sure that I compare like with like for a fair comparison.
To work it out you need to factor in all the ingredients used
- Flour white or brown, or bread flour
- Yeast
- Salt
- Sugar
- warm water
- oil
The Cost of Cooking Bread in the Oven or in a Breadmaker
It takes 30 minutes in an oven. It takes much longer in a breadmaker 1 to 3 hours but that is because it does all the work for you. It only takes minutes to pop in the ingredients then you set it and leave it.
The Cost of Your Time
The time it takes is greatly reduced by using a bread maker. However, if you factor in time and effort the cost does work out a lot more.
A quick Youtube Search comes up with several recipes. This one is Titled as Super easy and delicious.
That sounds perfect. So will it be cheaper?
It is an American recipe so it is in cups which is a confusing method of measuring for those of us not used to it. Sometimes it is easier just to get your own cups and follow it but for the purposes of this experiment, I will (attempt) to convert it.
- 2/3 cup sugar 150g or 5.29 oz
- 1.5 tablespoons of yeast or 14.3 grams in a tablespoon (21.5 g)
- 1.5 tablespoons of salt (21.5 g)
- 1 4th oil 59ml
- 6 cups of flour (1 cup =120g unsieved) 720g
- Two cups of warm water 474 ml
Cooking takes 30 minutes in a normal oven is approx roughly 17.5 pence based on 13.65 kWh.
This will vary slightly and change with time so this is just a guide. Prices are taken from Asda
- Sugar cost 1kg=64p sugar cost per loaf 1o pence
- Yeast= 21.5 g or 3 sachets of yeast large container of yeast is 100g 98 pence or 65p for 6 sachets of 7g (I’ve never had to use that much in my recipes), so yeast cost per loaf is 33 pence
- Salt =30 pence for table salt 750g or £1.10 for cooking salt 3kg, so salt per loaf is 1p
- Oil price ranges quite a lot so we will go with a basic one of £1.15 for a litre, oil is per loaf approx 7 pence
Flour 95p per 1.5 kg of strong white bread flour, Flour is about 48 pence
Total cost without cooking is 98 pence plus 17.5 pence
The total cost of cooking one loaf of bread is £1.16/2 as these ingredients make not one but two loaves of bread.
An equivalent loaf would cost £1.20 in a supermarket and about 1.45 in a local bakery. So there is a financial saving a huge one. With one loaf of bread costing only 58 pence. Although it is difficult to work out the exact size from the video.
Other Hidden Advantages of Bread Making
Other things you might like to factor in when baking your own bread would be the control of ingredients. By controlling what you buy you can get better ingredients. If you didn’t want to save money but pay the same you could buy much better quality for the same price. This would mean better family health and food.
There would be fewer if any preserves and convenience. If you use a bread maker it really doesn’t take that long. Not only that it is easy to make different types of bread like cinnamon bread or bread with currents in it.
Taste. It just tastes much better than shop bought bread.
Convenience. Always having fresh bread available without having to go out to the shops. Let’s face it you never just buy the bread so the saving will also be in what you do not spend on other things that you probably didn’t need anyway.
Bread Baking Cost Experiment. The Results
This example was spot on as when my sister and I calculated it there was a 50% saving on the equivalent loaf of bread. This works out about the same as well. Not including your time of course which if you use a bread maker is negligible.
The saving of making your own bread is around 50%. So you either get twice as much bread or twice as good bread.
And it tastes much better too!
