Bread for $2.21 per loaf

This homemade wholemeal bread costs $2.21 per 750 grams, according to my calculations, and tastes better than most commercial breads.
Here's the breakdown for my 1 kg loaf:

flour	$1.67
yeast	$0.60
bread improver	$0.14
salt	$0.06
linseed	$0.23
brown sugar	$0.10
electricity	$0.15
Total	$2.95

But, since a typical supermarket bread weighs 750 g, for comparison my bread costs $2.21 per 750 g. This doesn't factor in the cost of the breadmachine. I put that at about $0.57 per loaf, based on the cost of our machine and an assumption that we'd get 4 years out of it, making two loaves per week. We bought ours new, and it wasn't the cheapest, so you could probably do better. So, I don't think you'd get rich making your own bread, but it does compare quite favourably against a lot of supermarket breads, depending on what you normally buy.

Now for the recipe:



440 mL water
4 Tbsp linseed, ground (flax)
1.5 tsp salt
1 Tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp bread improver
700 g wholemeal flour
1.5 tsp dry yeast

Whack it all in the breadmachine in the order listed and bake according to the machine's instructions for a wholemeal loaf. This takes 4 hours on our machine, but it has a handy delayed start feature, so you can set it to finish ready for when you wake up.

This recipe is based on the wholemeal recipe that came with our machine, except I have replaced the added oil/margarine with ground flaxseed (linseed) - this provides some oil, and it is mostly the extra-healthy omega-3. I also scrapped the skim milk powder that seems to be in every breadmachine recipe, even before going vegan. I honestly couldn't notice any difference in taste. I have also played with the amount of sugar and salt. You can probably get away with no sugar, but salt is important to retard the yeast - I find any less than 1.5 teaspoons and the bread goes a bit haywire.

This bread is 100% wholemeal, so it's not as light and fluffy as a white or mixed flour bread, but I think it tastes really good, and the family seem to agree. For some reason, we find home-baked breads really excel when eaten as toast, and lucky for us, we eat a lot of toast. With a breadmachine and the ingredients at hand, putting a simple loaf like this together is so easy. The main variation I bake is just to add 3/4 cup mixed seeds and an extra 20 mL water for a wholemeal multigrain bread.

Lastly, big plug here, we get most bread-making bulk supplies - 5kg bags of flour, seeds, "bread improver" - online from basicingredients.com.au, based here in Brisbane. They have an awesome range and deliver quickly. Thanks Big Sis for putting me on to them!