Reasons to bake at home (and they are not just economic)
I read an article about the ‘real’ cost of making a loaf of bread at home the other day. The writer seemed to think that labour cost should come into it, and so it was over $30 to make a single loaf. Of course, by the same logic one should make each car separately, and perform every action or task as a stand alone task, and apply a labour cost to it.
So cooking dinner would take forever and cost a small fortune. Your average car would be the same price as a house, and your morning workout would require a bank loan when sustained over a year or so.
Everything in this world comes about as a result of an economy of scale. If you are going to bake a loaf of bread at home, firstly you will most likely make two or more. If you are doing it on a regular basis you will have tooled your kitchen to accommodate the production of bread, so you will have it down pat and very efficient. Your process will integrate into your existing kitchen function, so that you utilise the moment to moment kitchen process efficiently. You will have each bread process down to a matter of minutes.
When I timed my last home bake, it ended up requiring about 15 minutes of actual labour to make two loaves - the rest of the time it was either fermenting in the fridge, or I was shuffling around in the kitchen doing chores and cooking, while my bread was doing whatever it was doing without me.
The idea of applying a labour charge to household chores is problematic. It implies that you should be working constantly; as if to feed yourself, you are taking time out of your working life, so this should be costed.
It’s insane. An unhinged mentality that should be called out at every opportunity. This is why we are in the shit we are in. Too much emphasis on productivity as measured by our labour, as if all we are is a cog in the machine. A value is not attributed to pleasure, to engagement, to the joy of learning and accomplishment. There is no number in the GDP which measures things like life skills and lessons learned. No measurement for how ingenious or resilient a population is. And there’s really not much thought applied to what a healthy mind looks like. It’s considered healthy if it is functioning. If it needs a bottle of wine a day to function, well that’s fine. If it needs a bunch of pills to take the edges off life, that’s okay too. As long as the human cog continues to turn without excessive amounts of grease.
Making stuff, growing stuff, creating stuff - this is the antidote. To create for oneself is indeed a revolutionary act. And if the ‘stuff’ is part of ones own sustenance, even better. Bonus points!
Of course, economics is always lurking around these things. It’s predatory nature is everywhere, especially when the mortgage has just increased and food prices are going through the roof. Here’s how my home baking process stacks up economically, as compared to supermarket sourdough in my country town.
‘Premium’ supermarket sourdough (if you had to put a category on it) is $7.50 per loaf. We have a little bakery now who specialises in sourdough, and they charge $9.50 loaf. So the ballpark ‘average’ retail price is about $8.50.
I can buy reasonably good flour from the supermarket for approximately $2 per kilo. My water is almost free - not even cents per loaf. Salt is perhaps a cent per loaf. Sourdough starter comes from the flour, so the cost is included already. There is also the cost of driving to the supermarket, which I would have to do whether I made bread or not, so I won’t add this.
If I used 500g of flour per loaf, it’s about a dollar. Add in every other ingredient cost and you might come to an extra ten cents, and that’s being generous. So $1.10 total.
When I bake for home, I usually make enough dough for 3 loaves at a time - this is about a week’s worth of bread, or $25.50’s worth of premium sourdough bought from the shops.
Adding up all the time for making it, I would spend no more than 30 minutes. And that’s a generous time estimate too. Most tasks take very few minutes to complete. Cleaning up is included in my time estimate. If I was splitting hairs I would deduct the time I would have spent in the supermarket selecting and paying for my purchases, but I’m not - I just make note of it.
Is this 30 minutes of time that I have had to borrow from elsewhere? Not really. I cook for myself every day. I clean my kitchen every day. I shop for food and supplies most days anyway, so when it all boils down, the extra time to include making bread is negligible.
The other cost to be considered is energy. This can be significant, especially if you are buying yours straight off the grid at retail prices. If this was the case, you might want to add a couple of dollars per bake of 3 loaves. If you have another way - for example a wood fired oven, a solar oven, or have solar panels on your roof to offset this cost, the price will be less, of course. But let’s call it $2 for 3 loaves.
Thus, the actual cost of my 3 home made loaves is $5.30 for the week, vs $25.50 premade. And my bread is better, more satisfying for my soul, and has cost me very little time. I’ve saved at least $20 for my week’s supply of quality sourdough bread.
The numbers stack up, especially over time. A small amount of equipment to improve your process - for example a dutch oven, good kitchen scales, a good quality mixer etc can be another cost, but carefully considered and well used pieces of equipment pay for themselves very quickly.
The investment in learning is important. The cost of my own breaducation was and is expensive, as I have learned almost everything from scratch through trial and error. Luckily, this education has been able to broaden my expertise over the years, to the point where I can show you the results of this experience in a variety of ways.
You can come and be the recipient of my three decades worth for just $300. It will take a weekend of your time, but is there a price applied to having fun?
Gloucester village on the mid north coast of NSW is just a few hours from Sydney, and has numerous accommodation and tourism options. Our weekend workshop intensive is designed to allow you to have plenty of time to take in the town, so get in touch to be connected with what’s available locally.