Sunday, July 6, 2008

So Ryan was talking about how much he preferred my homemade bread to the "store bought crap". I jokingly said I should make all of our bread. Surprisingly, he was gung-ho about it. I said I would consider it if it were actually cheaper to make my own bread. Unfortunately, this involved copious amount of math on my part *large sigh*. BUT, I finally came up with the numbers. Here's the break-down (feel free to skip down if you're not interested in the math):

Unit Prices
10# Flour: 5.29
4 oz. Yeast: 5.29
8 qt. Milk: 7.18
4# Sugar: 1.58
1 gal. Oil: 9.99
Salt: (I forgot to check this at the store; for the figures below, I estimated it to be the same as sugar.)

Used for Recipe
Milk (powdered): 2 cups @ .224 = .448
Sugar: 5 tbsp @ .010 = .050
Salt: 2 tbsp @ .010 = .050
Yeast: 4.5 tsp @ .220 = .990
Flour: 12 cups @ .165 = 1.98
Oil: 5 tbsp @ .195


Long Story Short
Total per recipe: $3.71
4 loaves @ 3.71 = $0.93/loaf
Preferred Store Bread = $3.39/loaf
2nd Choice Store Bread = $2.25/loaf

So depending on what brand of bread I buy, I'm looking at a savings of 60-75%. That's a huge chunk of difference, especially when you consider that homemade is better. It's enough of a difference to make me seriously consider making my own bread.