We have been looking forward to this since Christmas and have been gathering equipment, scouring the blogs of other TWDers and talking about bread.
Cost of bread so far:
1 Kenwood Chef £369
1 Baking with Julia £16.50
2 Loaf tins £29.98
2 sets of weighing scales £30
1 set of American measuring cups £7.99
1 measuring cup £4.99
Total = £458.46 ($724.36)
....... and lots of strong flour and unsalted butter
All ingredients measured / weighed and ready to go..
The dough all mixed and ready for first rise..
In the tin and after second rise.
Out of the oven....
I very pleasing crumb and crust :)
Same dough but a plait loaf..
We actually made this recipe several times over - more from having perfectionist tendencies than loving the result. But, we have scoffed the outcome and enjoyed it. Even more enjoyable was learning about bread, ingredients, oven position, our weird ovens, no-knead bread, the importance of salt, having yeast that isn't up against its use-by date, taking photographs of food with a DSLR....and learning how to use our lovely new stand mixer.
Here's some of our previous attempts: These are actually mini loaves (or buns!) note the 10p coin on the board.
Here we have a bit of a selection
We have made bread before but never so frequently and with so much enthusiasm and attention to detail. Although we are already reading the chocolate tart recipe and preparing shopping lists, we now have 7.5kg (16.5 lbs) of flour and we have the bread bug and its going to be a regular part of our weekly meals.
The butter seemed like a strange addition - we've read that it makes a softer loaf - but there was so much of it. It prompted me to have a sneak peek ahead at the brioche recipe - that sounds like buttery fun!
I love the mini loaves--so cute! I don't want to think too hard about the amount of money I've spent on cookbooks & kitchen toys in the four years that I've been blogging. But hey, it's still got to be cheaper than eating out. =P Welcome to the group!
ReplyDeleteLoved your loaves! We'll try to make back the $700 and change for you with really good baking experiences... ;-)
ReplyDeleteThe more bread you bake, the less it will cost per loaf!
ReplyDeleteHappy that you enjoyed your bread, it looks yummy.
Wow you went for it! All your loaves look great. Now, if I only knew what a 10p coin was the size of over on my end of the world! :)
ReplyDeleteA bread new mixer for this! Wow! Looks like you did a great job with the variety of loaves you made!
ReplyDeleteI got the same mixer just before Christmas :). Welcome to the world of baking! Love all your little mini loaves, great idea.
ReplyDeleteWow - you are just going to have to keep making loaves until the cost per loaf comes down from :-)
ReplyDeleteYou definitely jumped in with both feet!
I love your enthusiasm! Your bread loaves all look wonderful, and I can say from experience that once the bread bug bites there's literally no end to the fun and the loaves coming out of the oven. One of my favorite sources for bread recipes is Dan Lepard whose recipes are published in the Guardian and other UK sources. Welcome to TWD.
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