Posted in Featured, Food Recipes, Health | Monday, April 12th, 2010
Making your own bread saves you money. Plain and simple. It’s also healthier for you. My father-in-law (Papa Brown) doesn’t buy his bread from a grocery store. He either makes rolls himself, or he buys his bread from the bakery. When I asked him why, he said, “There’s something wrong with bread from the store. It takes too long to go bad.” Papa Brown was referring to the preservatives and icky ingredients that are in most store-bought bread. Including High-Fructose Corn Syrup, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, (a.k.a.- “trans-fats”) among other things. For more info on what’s in mass-produced bread, click here.
Basic Bread only needs 6 ingredients:
Ever read the ingredients in that 47 grain enriched “healthy” loaf from the store?
I’m not quite sure what made me decide to make bread this weekend. (It’s not like I didn’t have enough things to do), but when I ran across this recipe on the simple dollar with step-by-step instructions I just couldn’t resist! It looked SO EASY! I thought bread making was supposed to be a really long complicated process and it really wasn’t. I don’t have a big KitchenAid mixer so I kneaded, punched, pulled and squeezed away at the dough for 10 minutes straight. (After the week I had? It felt great to punch something…)
I think I’ll be making bread every Friday night from now on.
Here’s my little loaf of plain white crusty bread. It made the house smell wonderful!
My First Loaf!
Sexy wanted a slice right out of the oven. I stopped him from eating it just long enough to take this picture. For my first attempt it wasn’t bad. I used regular yeast and rice milk and looking back, I don’t think I left it to rise long enough, (It was about the size of a long hoagie roll), but it tasted yummy and I’m going to try again this week. I can’t wait to experiment with different flours and dried fruit!
Click below for this unbelieveably simple recipe, (with pictures!)
The Simple Dollar Easy Bread Recipe
About Savvy Brown
I believe being healthy doesn't have to be complicated, being green can be easy and being broke isn't an option!
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I do make my own bread, but I’ve been a little lazy about it lately. I follow a really simple old recipe that I found in one of my grandmother’s cooking books.
I make it with local and organic wheat flour from our local co-op, and it’s delicious. I’ll have to post the recipe sometime.
Cuz! I am impressed, and my mom would be too!!
How funny! My husband and I just switched breads. We realized how unhealthy the “healthy” bread is at the store, and decided to start buying potato bread (a relatively healthier alternative). Making our own bread would be the best thing, but this change will do for now. I am in full agreement with Papa Brown! We can avoid a lot of bad things if we’re observant.
@Eric YES! please post your recipe I wanna see!
@BDADIVA Thank you that’s a HUGE compliment! I’ve gotta perfect it though, it was a little small. LOL
@b. I have to take a look at potato bread, I never knew it didn’t have any preservatives in it. Papa Brown will be very happy, that SOMEONE is listening to him! LOL!
Love this (especially the punching comment)! Making bread can be so therapeutic, and it’s really not that intimidating. Try this really easy recipe for a fun twist on raisin bread:
soak for five minutes:
1 c orange juice, heated until you can barely stand putting your finger in it
1 package dry yeast
1T sugar
1/2 c raisins
1 T orange peel (optional)
Add:
2T oil of your choice
flour
I don’t measure the flour…just add and knead, right in the bowl–keeps the mess down, too. Once the dough is not too sticky (it will be a little), toss onto counter and knead about five more minutes.
let rise til double, punch down, roll into a loaf, let rise til double.
Bake at 375 for 25 minutes, put foil on top, and back for 10-15 minutes more.
Super yummy….
Wow, I am so glad you posted this! Dr. Oz (www.realage.com) just sent me an email about bread and which one is most beneficial for your gums and digestive system. I can’t wait to try it!
[...] than yumminess, what’s so great about homemade bread? Savvy Brown [...]
I cannot wait to try this! Thanks for the heads up about the ingredients found in breads at your local super market WOW a real EYE opener!*
I will follow up and let you know how it turned out!*
Question: can I substitute something for the milk? I don’t use milk, it’s not friendly to me, lol
@SmileyFace Yes! I used Rice Milk! Or if you prefer, soy or almond milk I’m sure that would work too.
Excellent! I use rice milk as well, did you use the same amount or more/less rice milk? I notice with some baked goods I have to fudge the amounts a little to get the same consistency I would get if I would have used milk.
Love the site by the way…just subscribed!
All of my “allergies” that I thought were seasonal/airborne have been decreasing more and more as I use less and less junk, lol.
I used the same amount, but, like I said my loaf was “wittle”, so this weekend I’m going to attempt it again at my moms and leave the load on the warming area of her stove to rise. Glad you like the site! I was having weird rashes tht turned out to be from fabric softener that completely went away when I started using my own.
I am printing off the recipe as we speak. I love to eat bread so making it with my girls today will be very fun
Let me know how it goes! Someone on the FB page suggested that you put the loaf on a dryer that just went off or a really warm stove, so that the bread rises more. HTH
[...] 6. Make your own bread – Or at least buy it from the bakery. Not only is this usually cheaper, but it’s healthier too! Flour, milk, butter and sugar which can make several loaves of bread at once cost less together than 1 single loaf of bread. Need a recipe? Check out my post Homemade Bread for Dummies. [...]
I tried to click on the link for more info on the junk in our bread to see how much of it is in the Nature’s Own bread I’ve been buying but it comes up with an error. I used to have a breadmaker a few years ago and that was nice and easy with my large family we used bread a lot. Since I haven’t had one I have been doing it by hand I have to agree it is the best way to relax and “distress pounding on some dough.” I’ve even made my own bagels, soft pretzels and donut holes (I had to find recipes to please our cravings of the things I didn’t buy anymore). I find most of my recipes on a great site http://www.recipezaar.com. Here’s a link to a quick recipe I always go to for French bread. I even substitute the flour out for wheat most of the time and it is quite yummy!
http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/French-Bread-Rapid-Rise-38327
This recipe makes a rather good French loaf. Since it uses “rapid rise” yeast, it is quicker to make because it only needs 1 rise instead of 2. Prep time includes 40 minute rising time.
2 Loaves (change servings and units)
Ingredients
* 5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 tablespoon sugar
* 2 teaspoons salt
* 2 packages fast rising yeast
* 2 cups hot water (125°-130°F)
* 1 egg white
* 1 tablespoon water
* cornmeal
Directions
1.Set aside 1 cup of flour.
2.In a large bowl, mix remaining flour, sugar, salt and yeast.
3.Stir hot water into dry mixture.
4.Mix in enough reserved flour to make a soft dough.
5.On lightly floured surface, knead dough until smooth and elastic (about 8-10 minutes).
6.Cover dough and let it rest for 10 minutes.
7.Divide dough in half.
8.Roll half of dough into a 10×15 inch rectangle.
9.Roll dough tightly (like a jelly roll), starting from the long side, and tapering the ends.
10.Pinch ends and seam to seal.
11.Place dough seam side down on greased baking sheet which has been sprinkled with cornmeal.
12.Repeat with remaining half of dough.
13.Cover dough and let rise in a warm draft-free place until doubled in size (about 35-40 minutes).
14.With a sharp knife or razor blade, make 4 diagonal cuts on the top of each loaf.
15.Combine egg white and 1 Tablespoon water, brush on loaves.
16.Bake in preheated 425°F oven for 25-30 minutes or until done.
17.Remove from baking sheets and cool on wire racks.
18.Note: If you want to make baguettes instead of loaves, you can roll the dough into a rope (by hand) to get the longer thinner shape.
Wow Kichael! THANK YOU! I went back and fixed the broken link, BTW. This is great. I just went grocery shopping and bought some fast rising yeast. I’m gonna try to make this this weekend!
Leah I am SO trying this! I’ll post how it goes, thank you!
[...] your sandwich on with Homemade Bread for Dummies via savvybrown.com It’s true what she says in this post, commercial breads in your [...]
[...] owe this post to Savvy reader Kichael, who commented on my original “Homemade Bread for Dummies” post with a bread recipe from Recipe Zaar that introduced me to quick-rising yeast! I altered it [...]
I suppose all that punching, and kneading has given you an arm workout. lol. I think this recipe would go well with raisins, I’ve been looking around for a raising bread recipe, plenty out there, but hoping to come along one that is yeast free. BTW, have you tried using rice flour for your bread? It will make the bread tastier and your house will smell twice nicer!
@Jaeny Yes! It’s a workout. LOL Thanks for the suggestions. I neer thought of using rice flour. Do you use it alone in recipes, or do you mix it with all-purpose?
Hi Savvy,
Alone, but that is because I can’t use wheat flour, somebody at home gets an eczema outbreak when I do
anways, I came upon the rice flour recipe for pizza crusts, then realized it would work in breads too and have been making them once in a while. Here is a link to a really simple rice flour bread recipe I came upon, but you can always mix and match the ingredients when you want I suppose, it’s always great to experiment! 
http://mudspice.wordpress.com/2007/10/06/rice-flour-bread-for-bread-machine-gluten-free-egg-free-dairy-free/
Yes, let’s make our own bread! I am not a huge bread baker, but I completely agree with the need to cut the junk out. The recipes I’ve baked from scratch usually work out ok (I made one very very similar to your recipe above), though never as well as the author suggests
Also, I have to say that I find it to be too much work to buy bags of all the seeds and things I like in my bread since I don’t bake even every month. I started baking mixes from a small company called Baked Better: http://bakedbetter.com/. They are in Brooklyn, so also local for me! The bread with 7 seeds and grains is really very good and so much less work. Huge props for people who make everything from scratch. Of course, guests never know that I use a mix 