Nothing like a good firm pain in the cold dark night

Homemade bread will stale reasonably quickly and also go mouldy more quickly than store bought, especially if it’s wrapped in plastic. When I bake bread it takes me more than a week to get through the loaf, so I’ll divide it in half: slice up one half and freeze it (with parchment paper between the slices) and keep the other half out for consuming—wrapped in parchment either in the cupboard or refrigerated.

The frozen slices will defrost and toast perfectly in a toaster or a warmed oven. If I’m using them for a breakfast sandwich, I put it in the preheating frying pan with the lid on until I’m ready to cook the eggs.

I do 500g flour, 2tsp instant yeast, 2 tsp sugar, 1.5tsp salt, 2tbsp olive oil or softened butter, and 320ml water. Throw it all into the bowl of a stand mixer and knead with the dough hook for 7-10 mins on high. Leave to rise for an hour then tip out onto a floured surface. Fold a couple of times then roll into a tight sausage and drop into a loaf tin. Cover and leave again for 45mins. Into the oven for 25 mins at 240C, then tip out of the tin upside down for another 5 mins.

I do that 2–3 times a week, and it does ok for our family of 5. It should last 4-5 days with the oil in it. Bread flour is best, but plain/ap is perfectly acceptable.

not OP but my basic recipe is:

• 3 cups unbleached all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp active dry yeast
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 1/4 cups water at skin temperature
• a few tbsp oil
• spices (usually dried minced garlic, onion powder, and chili flakes) - kind of whatever you want to add really

water + sugar + yeast & let it proof for a few minutes. mix it all together & knead for ~10 minutes. rest in a greased bowl until doubled in size & then knead it down again. put a cast iron dutch oven & its lid in the oven & bake at 450F. when the dough is risen again, put the dough in the cast iron pot, score the top of the dough (razor blade works really well), then bake for ~35 minutes covered and 10 minutes uncovered (time largely dependent on elevation, I’m at sea level), then pull it out & let it rest (I let it rest in a ziplock bag so the crust softens a bit) for an hour.

tasty bread every time

I dunno, I find that homemade bread never lasts as long. It is just that much better and satisfying. But, like others said if you scale it up and make more you can just freeze it. Toasting a partially frozen slice of bread is just another level of perfect.

Ours keeps about a week in the fridge before drying out to the point it’s crumbly, though it’s usually gone by then. Long as you have some free time it’s not usually all that scary. I only have sourdough and bread machine recipes at the moment but I can share those if you’d like them

Quite a few people were making loaves while reading this thread.

Paprika app is very good. Strips off the SEO life story, stores locally, can scale recipes, holds your phone out of lock while it’s open if you want it to, and a lot more.

I use Paprika, I like how it can strip recipes off websites so I can save and organize them without having to read about how this was the favorite soup of the authors dead grandmother and they make it for their kids every holiday to keep the memory alive.

So yea, Paprika.

I’ve found when making bread that it makes no difference to the final product whether you use milk or not, so I avoid it as unnecessary extra work. I also like to use molasses instead of sugar although not everybody likes the flavor of that; it also darkens the bread a little bit which prevents it from being so shockingly white.

I pay $2 a week in flour and maybe $3 for dried fruit a week to put into home made sourdough. You can buy a 10lb. Bag of all purpose flour at all the grocery stores in town for ~ $4.

If you skip the fruit it would be about half what you’re spending, though if you want whole wheat flour that would probably double the flour cost at a minimum.