Sandwich Bread

[Satori]

I buy my yeast by the lb at my local grocery store. It is Fleischman's. Comes in a plain white vacuum sealed bag.
I am a flour snob. I use good flour (King Arthur) or other high quality flour and do buy high protein for bread and low protein for cookies and cakes.

Would you say that the higher cost of the good flour offsets the cost of buying a reasonably good loaf of store bread? I'm curious.

[JacafamalaRedux]

Oven snobs can overlook this question: I am a reasonably decent baker, but i don't have enough interest to be an everyday baker.  Frankly, Wonder Bread is just too cheap for me to worry about kneading anything.  But I'm down with homemade bread and wouldn't object to buying a bread machine.

Any suggestions for bread machines?  Experience?  Input?

I've got the Williams Sonoma model and am pleased with it's performance... It gets a lot of use here.

[mom]

I buy my yeast by the lb at my local grocery store. It is Fleischman's. Comes in a plain white vacuum sealed bag.
I am a flour snob. I use good flour (King Arthur) or other high quality flour and do buy high protein for bread and low protein for cookies and cakes.

Would you say that the higher cost of the good flour offsets the cost of buying a reasonably good loaf of store bread? I'm curious.

I pay $3/5 lbs of flour. I rarely buy King Arthur now as I found a local brand that is just as good and cheaper. I use a couple pennies worth of yeast. I can make a loaf of fresh bread for about fifty cents.


 

[Satori]

I buy my yeast by the lb at my local grocery store. It is Fleischman's. Comes in a plain white vacuum sealed bag.
I am a flour snob. I use good flour (King Arthur) or other high quality flour and do buy high protein for bread and low protein for cookies and cakes.

Would you say that the higher cost of the good flour offsets the cost of buying a reasonably good loaf of store bread? I'm curious.

I think there are a couple of things you must take into consideration before you can do a strict cost analysis.

For instance, homemade bread is definitely cheaper than the better storebought loaves (we prefer Arnold's oatnut bread if we buy storebought, and the cheapest I can find it in my local area is on sale for 2 for $5.00).

Even if I bought the more expensive bread flour (and personally, I've never been able to tell the difference in the baked loaf) homemade would still be much cheaper.

However, when I make homemade bread, we tend to eat more of it. This was especially true when my children still lived at home. An entire loaf of bread could disappear in less than an hour after it came out of the oven.

To me, this was still worth it, since I know what ingredient go into my homemade bread. But if you are buying cheaper bread (I think I've seen bread for as low as 79 cents a loaf on sale at Wal-Mart) and are looking strictly at price, then it would be a toss-up.

Well, then I would have to ask how many children you have? And did you and your husband get any of the bread before it disappeared?

[Faithful_Hannah]

To be honest, I have not actually made this bread yet, but the fact that you can make it in a covered pot and it requires no kneading are high on my list of reasons to try. It also sounds great as a base for cheese, chicken or egg salad, or veggie sandwiches.

Lemon-Rosemary No-Knead Bread

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/recipedetail.cfm?objectid=3D454627-DD8E-4D0B-EE3171FF7FEA996D

[introibo]

The Zojirushi is probably the best out there, and until fairly recently, it was still made in Korea, I think.  Not sure where it's made now - maybe China like all the rest.

 

Christina

[Historian]

Just to let you all know, I do not and will not use a bread machine, and never again will I not proof my yeast. I must have a recipe that doesn't negate yeast-proofing and that involves conventional kneading.

If you get arthritis in your hands, you may change your mind about bread machines. Ask me how I know. :sad:

I've been baking bread since 1967, following my grandmother's example. We first got a bread machine around 1990 and one of the joys of a bread machine is that you can program it to start the bread during the night and have fresh hot bread ready for breakfast. Yum. It's like having elves working for you.

Also, I was teaching then so could only make bread the conventional way on the weekends, in addition to it hurting my hands to do the kneading. The advent of bread machines was a Godsend to us. A mixer with dough hooks is another good alternative to hand kneading if you want to form the loaves by hand, which I sometimes do. Yes, I miss kneading dough but that's life; things change and you have to adapt.

[Satori]

Just to let you all know, I do not and will not use a bread machine, and never again will I not proof my yeast. I must have a recipe that doesn't negate yeast-proofing and that involves conventional kneading.

If you get arthritis in your hands, you may change your mind about bread machines. Ask me how I know. :sad:

I've been baking bread since 1967, following my grandmother's example. We first got a bread machine around 1990 and one of the joys of a bread machine is that you can program it to start the bread during the night and have fresh hot bread ready for breakfast. Yum. It's like having elves working for you.

Also, I was teaching then so could only make bread the conventional way on the weekends, in addition to it hurting my hands to do the kneading. The advent of bread machines was a Godsend to us. A mixer with dough hooks is another good alternative to hand kneading if you want to form the loaves by hand, which I sometimes do. Yes, I miss kneading dough but that's life; things change and you have to adapt.

Aiee, I never meant to imply a judgment on people who use bread machines. What gives? Use your bread machine for whatever reason you like. I don't like them. My old roomie and I had one once, and it was a pain in the butt. There are surely better ones that aren't a pain in the butt, but they don't satisfy my reasons for making my own bread and the product they deliver, while good, is inferior to conventionally made bread.

Okay, I take it back: Someday I MAY use a bread machine if making bread by hand becomes too difficult. But that isn't the case now, and I want recipes that employ conventional methods.

[AdoramusTeChriste]

Bread should never be anywhere near a sandwich. All you need is a big wad of meat and a hefty slice of provolone or swiss. Roll it up. Olives, onions, etc. are allowed.

[Historian]

Just to let you all know, I do not and will not use a bread machine, and never again will I not proof my yeast. I must have a recipe that doesn't negate yeast-proofing and that involves conventional kneading.

If you get arthritis in your hands, you may change your mind about bread machines. Ask me how I know. :sad:

I've been baking bread since 1967, following my grandmother's example. We first got a bread machine around 1990 and one of the joys of a bread machine is that you can program it to start the bread during the night and have fresh hot bread ready for breakfast. Yum. It's like having elves working for you.

Also, I was teaching then so could only make bread the conventional way on the weekends, in addition to it hurting my hands to do the kneading. The advent of bread machines was a Godsend to us. A mixer with dough hooks is another good alternative to hand kneading if you want to form the loaves by hand, which I sometimes do. Yes, I miss kneading dough but that's life; things change and you have to adapt.

Aiee, I never meant to imply a judgment on people who use bread machines. What gives? Use your bread machine for whatever reason you like. I don't like them. My old roomie and I had one once, and it was a pain in the butt. There are surely better ones that aren't a pain in the butt, but they don't satisfy my reasons for making my own bread and the product they deliver, while good, is inferior to conventionally made bread.

Okay, I take it back: Someday I MAY use a bread machine if making bread by hand becomes too difficult. But that isn't the case now, and I want recipes that employ conventional methods.

If kneading your dough by hand is important to you and you're able to do it, of course you don't want a bread machine. I understand that. If I were still able to knead dough, I wouldn't have bought one, either.

But if my bread machine -- and we have had more than one machine though all three still work -- didn't produce excellent bread, I wouldn't use it. If it were a pain in the butt to use, I wouldn't use it. I also have a Kitchenaid mixer with dough hooks that will knead dough for me, but it requires more clean-up than the bread machine, and more time to produce a loaf of bread. I use it, but not as often as the bread machine.

I just wanted to give a positive view of bread machines for those who may want to buy one, from the viewpoint of someone who baked bread by hand for more than twenty years before getting a machine. The second and third machines we got were cheap ones, a two for one sale, which my husband bought in case the old one broke down. We've used them all and none have broken down yet so I don't think the make of machine makes a great deal of difference. The recipes you use do make a difference, as recipes always do.