How much does baking play into your frugality?

[stretchmark]

I'm just wondering. We are currently really poor and I am finding myself making muffins out of leftover oatmeal or making biscuits to go with dinner.
I am going to get some powdered milk to bake with and maybe some arrowroot for egg replacer since those seem to be the two main ingredients of expense with oil coming close behind.

How much does baking save you? I'm not referring to cooking in general, just the baking aspect.

[celestialdreamer]

well, I did a lot of frugal baking before we went gluten-free and I did feel like it helped us save $. I can't give you an exact amount because the stuff I made was superior quality/nutrition to the storebought cheap stuff. When we have been really broke in the past I have relied heavily on baking and homemade soups/stews. Not sure if that helps or not.

[spatulagirl]

Well, we are not doing as well now as we have in the past. I bake everything. Bread, snacks, rolls, pancakes, everything from scratch. I bought flour in bulk, yeast in bulk, everything I can in bulk. Which saves. We buy nothing processed and right now I make a lot of one pot meals. Chili, stew, wild rice with beans and squash, lentils... you get the idea.

I think it is helping. I have been trying to stock up on goods and now we shouldn't have to go grocery shopping for a few weeks so we can put that money into paying some bills

[pampered_mom]

A fair amount since for the price of a few loaves of bread I can make a whole lot more sourdough. All I need is flour, water, and sea salt for a true sourdough.

[bendmom]

I bake alot which saves money I think in snacks, dohnuts, junk. Could you give your recipe for muffins out of leftover oatmeal please?

[Sharlla]

For us I'm sure it would cost us more. WE eat abouit 1 loaf of the $1 bread a week and don't eat any other bread products or deserts.

[phroggies]

The good bread around here--and I'm a horrible bread snob--is usually between 3.50 and 4.00 a loaf. We go through around a loaf a week, so baking that has been helping some.

I should do better about baking snacks, in particular for DH. Having something on hand or to put in his lunch would probably forstall a lot of impulse purchases on his part (i.e., eating lunch at Starbucks).

[melissel]

If I were to bake as much as I wanted, I'd probably be able to save us a lot more, but with the way the schedule is around here right now (I work 30 hours a week with only p/t childcare, DH works 45-50 hours and commutes 45 minutes each way, I am basically the only person taking care of the house, we have preschool and ballet and gymnastics, plus a toddler who has a VERY hard time letting me cook ) I don't get nearly enough time to do it. I wanted to bake bread today, but by the time it will need to come out, we won't be here. So I do what I can--the occasional loaf when we run out of bread, a double batch of apple muffins to go into the freezer for breakfasts and snacks, the occasional cake. The apple muffins save us the most, honestly, because the girls love them so much, they're a perfect breakfast and snack. I'm actually starting to think about tripling the recipe each time, because they go fast!

The only bread I'll buy--Nature's Promise brand all-natural (but not organic)--is $2.50 a loaf, and we average maybe a loaf and a half a week. I'm certain my own bread is cheaper, but no one around here likes it as much as they do regular bread for sandwiches, which is mainly what we use bread for. However, I do have a recipe for whole wheat honey yogurt rolls that everyone loves, so I bet I could get more use out of those. Hmmm, that never occurred to me! They're more time consuming, but they taste way better.

Anyway, I'm certain that if I could bake more like SpatulaGirl does, it would help a lot. I just don't have the time.

[Samjm]

Baking definitely saves us money.

I have a bread machine and I use it to make sandwhich bread - at less than $1 a loaf. Yes, the loaf is smaller than store bought bread, but the bread is denser, so you actually use less (DH can get by eating 1 sandwhich instead of 2 for example).

I need to make more muffins and freeze them, since that would save a lot on mid-morning snacks at work. When I do have muffins, they work great for that.

[***Heather***]

We're poor right now too. : So I'm trying not to spend alot of money on groceries. (I think I spent 70$ in sept and about 40$ in Oct.) I have a big bag of flour, another of sugar, small bag of oatmeal, yeast and some spices. I find that I'm baking more lately to add a little something to our meal or satisfying our sweet tooth. Stuff like dumplings, biscuits, bread, focaccia (minus the cheese), oatmeal scones, apple crisp, rhubarb cake... Fairly simple things that don't have too many complicated ingrediants. It's really helped a lot and hasn't cost anything extra. Except for buying butter more often.

[mama kate]

Melissel~
Can you post your recipes for the apple muffins & the rolls please. :
(also the best way to freeze/defrost the muffins - I'm baking/freezing challenged!!)

[melissel]

Sure! Here's the link to the roll recipe. I was wrong, they're actually not 100% WW, but you could white whole wheat in place of the white, or experiment with adding more WW than the recipe calls for. That's how I convert all my recipes Oh, and I forgot to mention earlier that it's for the bread machine, which does almost all the work. Then I punch down the dough, split it into 8-9 rolls on baking sheets, let them rise again on my oven top (which gets nice and warm), and bake them. They're about sandwich size that way. I think the original recipe makes them as dinner rolls.

http://www.mothering.com/discussions...30&postcount=3

Here are the muffins:

http://www.mothering.com/discussions...69&postcount=2

When I make the muffins, I leave a few out for eating over the next day or so. For the rest, I let them cool, then I wrap each one individually in aluminum foil (though next time I'm going to experiment with not wrapping them), and drop them into a bread bag (you know, the kind from the expensive store bought bread ) and put them in the freezer. They keep well, though ours usually get eaten up very quickly. When I want to make some for breakfast, I get them out and put them on the counter before I shower. Then when they've softened, I cut them in half and toast them in the toaster oven. You can still toast them if they're totally frozen, but they're hard to cut in half, and they're usually still cold in the middle.

HTH!

[melissel]

Originally Posted by ***Heather***

We're poor right now too. : So I'm trying not to spend alot of money on groceries. (I think I spent 70$ in sept and about 40$ in Oct.) I have a big bag of flour, another of sugar, small bag of oatmeal, yeast and some spices. I find that I'm baking more lately to add a little something to our meal or satisfying our sweet tooth. Stuff like dumplings, biscuits, bread, focaccia (minus the cheese), oatmeal scones, apple crisp, rhubarb cake... Fairly simple things that don't have too many complicated ingrediants. It's really helped a lot and hasn't cost anything extra. Except for buying butter more often.

Ooooooohhhhh, Heather! We'll be having scones (with cranberries though) for breakfast tomorrow! Thanks

[Ahappymel]

Originally Posted by pamered_mom

All I need is flour, water, and sea salt for a true sourdough.

Oooo! Are you willing to share a recipe/method?