Homemade Bread

Does it count as homemade bread if you make it with a breadmaker? I think so.

Last weekend I went to the thrift store near my mom's home and bought a breadmaker for $2.99 (This is the standard price for breadmakers at Goodwill). My stepmom had bought one from there weeks before and loved it, so I grabbed one too. I had read that one way to save lots of money is to get a breadmaker, because the investment over time is worth it.

my $2.99 breadmaker

So I did some research online and combined a few recipes I found. I wanted to make a simple, soft loaf of wheat bread from scratch. So here is my recipe which worked amazingly the first time I used it:

1 cup bread machine flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup very warm (almost hot) water

2 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tbsp sugar

1 1/4 tspn salt

1 tspn rapid rise yeast (bread machine yeast)

Now the trick is to go against what most directions say and combine the yeast, the sugar, and the water in the pan first and let it sit until it is all foamy and bubbly (about 10 mins). If it doesn't bubble after 10 mins, I filled a bowl with hot water and put the bottom of the pan in it. Then add the other ingredients and press the buttons for a normal cycle (or wheat cycle if your machine has that). In 2 hours I had a beautiful (though little) loaf

I showed my husband how to make it and now we have fresh bread all the time. I estimate that it costs us less than 50 cents a loaf