Easy bread recipe which is also inexpensive!
I read on here that it's way less expensive to bake your own bread than to buy it, which also means fewer preservatives in it.
I'm putting the recipe up here (which I made by combining various bread recipes I found on here until I got what I wanted).
Your ingredients are yeast, sugar, olive oil, salt, and flour.
Warm 1 & 1/4 cups water, pour over 1 Tbsp yeast & 1 tsp sugar. Let sit 5-10 minutes until yeast is happy and activated (kinda fun to watch).
Add 3 Tbsp olive oil and about 3/4 tsp salt.
Start adding flour to mixture and stirring until your spoon has turned it into a lump. Flour your hands while keeping a handled scoop available to add flour as needed, clean any dough off your spoon, and begin kneading.
Seriously, don't be afraid of kneading. Look up a YouTube video on it and dive in.
The dough will start to go from lump to ball. If you're wanting solid sandwich bread, knead for about 7-10 minutes to build up the gluten. If you want something that'll kind of crumble, only until it holds its shape in a ball. If you want to feel fancy about it, look up the windowpane test.
Lightly oil a new bowl where your dough can sit covered for a little over an hour. I do about an hour and ten. It should roughly double in size.
Go see how much your dough baby has grown! Now you get to smack it! No joke, lightly slap your dough to let the extra air out.
Lightly oil a bread pan (IKEA has a nice long one I love!) and carefully move your bread to it. Lightly cover it with a tea towel or paper towel for about a half hour while your oven preheats to 350°.
Uncover your bread pan (the bread should have risen slightly again) and place in the oven for 30-40 minutes. The top should get a buttery color to it. Again, if you want to feel fancy, use an oven mitt to hold the bread and tap the bottom. A hollow sound means it's done.
Let cool on a rack preferably or a plate, just don't leave it in the loaf pan.
Tell everyone about how you make your own bread, and feel great when they learn it was without a breadmaker or a standing mixer.
Okay, options. You can do an egg wash over your bread before it goes in the oven, but mine always molded faster if I did. Without, it seems to last about a week. Amazon has little bread-saver sheets that absorb moisture and stuff that cause mold if you need it to last even longer.
I have a Sam's membership, and because I've been dirt poor before, I can say I'd happily foot the first bill for someone's ingredients and let them use my membership to get more. Trust in the good nature of your friends.
Anyway, I can get all my ingredients at Sam's, and they last MONTHS! You can even buy yeast in bulk and keep it in a jar in the fridge for 6 months. Sam's also has a specific type of flour for baking bread, and I use less of it than all-purpose flour, so if it's just for bread, I recommend that to save.
I would imagine Costco has the same stuff as they seem pretty identical to Sam's.
Now, we've gotten to a safe point financially, so my "splurge" is to get my olive oil from a local shop that infuses their oil with different herbs and flavors. My favorite is rosemary.
I hope this helps, whether you're looking for a new bake, trying to save a little money, or trying to find ways to make food last.
