I have baked my own bread for a long time, mainly at home, although in the campervan I occasionally knock up some pitta bread. I became a bread maker in the days when we lived in a semi-detached house with a good-sized kitchen and I had room to leave a worktop covered in flour for a few hours while the dough proved. When we moved to our flat I still wanted fresh homemade bread but there was hardly enough space for kneading dough on the worktops of our tiny kitchen. We don’t have a good bakery nearby and shop-bought bread was so awful, buying a compact bread maker was an option that has worked well for us.
We have owned our Morphy Richards compact bread maker for nine years now. We have had to buy a new pan and paddle over the years but it has given good service, is easy to use and makes affordable fresh and tasty bread that we love. I particularly like knowing exactly what has gone in to our bread and just love the smell of bread baking.
We use the bread maker two or three times a week while we are at home. I would estimate before we retired we used it around 100 times a year and now we are away on campervan trips more we use it around 70 times a year. In nine years that is a lot of bread-making cycles!
WHAT DOES MAKING BREAD AT HOME COST?
- Morphy Richards compact bread maker £46.50
- Replacement bread pan £25.99
- Replacement kneading paddle £8.99
- TOTAL £81.48 [£9.05 per year / approx £0.10 per use]
BREAD INGREDIENTS [for one loaf]
- 500 gms of mixed strong white and wholemeal flour £0.28
- Allinsons Easy Bake Yeast £0.08
- Olive oil, salt and water cost pennies
- Electricity approximately £0.12
- TOTAL INGREDIENTS [for one loaf] £0.48
These calculations are rough and ready [our bread maker might last a few more years for a start] but show that the cost of a loaf and the bread maker over nine years comes to around £0.60. While you can get a sliced white loaf in a supermarket for around this price, the taste of this is no match for homemade bread. Buying a good loaf from a bakery would cost much more, so a frugal and tasty win!
Back on the road again 