This is the bread that convinces friends and family to go buy themselves a bread machine. Because, not only can you NOT (double negative, WATCH OUT.) find anything that tastes this good at Wal-Mart, but would you believe it’s cheaper, too? (See below for price analysis.)

Ingredients:

7.5 oz water, 80 degrees
3 Tbs honey
2 c bread flour
1 c oats, quick or old fashioned
1.5 Tbs dry milk
1.25 tsp salt
1.5 Tbs butter, cut into four pieces
2 tsp active dry yeast

  1. Get out ye handy dandy bread machine.
  2. Add water and honey.
  3. Add dry ingredients.
  4. Tap to settle ingredients, make a well in the middle for your yeast. (Just a slight well, make sure no water is peeking through.)
  5. Place one piece of butter in each corner, and put the yeast in the middle.
  6. Set machine for basic.
  7. Watch while kneading – if it is crumbly, add water 1 Tbs at a time. If it is sticking to the sides after 5 minutes of kneading, add flour 1 Tbs at a time.
  8. Wait four hours with butter in one hand and knife in the other.
  9. Enjoy.

There are 20 cups in a 5 lb bag of flour that costs 1.49 = $0.149/loaf
There are 15 cups in a 42 oz. container of old fashioned oats that costs 1.39 = $0.093
There are 32 Tbs in 24 oz of honey that costs 2.99 = $0.28
There are 35.5 tsp in 4 oz of active dry yeast that costs roughly $5 = $0.282
All other ingredients are negligible.

Total cost for 1.5 lb loaf of bread = $0.80/loaf.

Of course, if I wanted to make plain white bread, it would be cheaper still and yield a larger loaf (same weight, less dense), but what’s the fun in that? Besides, this is healthier.

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What’s your favorite bread machine recipe?