Do you bake bread regularly?

I think many people eat bread daily or at least every other day. Yet, my impression is that majority of people do not bake bread on a regular basis. This means most people buy bread, which explains why there are tons of bread in stores.

Why is that? Is it because:
a) It is too time consuming to bake bread at home
b) It is too laborsome to bake bread at home
c) It is too expensive to bake bread at home

I rarely bake bread because I am not that good at it, so you can put me down as in b). However, a) and c) also apply for me as well. I am just curious if people bake most of their own bread or they buy most of their own bread. I boiught 99% of my bread.

I started baking my own baguettes a few months ago. Itā€™s not labor-intensive, but it does require that I be home for most of a day, turning the bread a few times during the rise, shaping the loaves, preheating the baking steel, etc. And it took me about 6 or 7 tries before I was satisfied with the result - thatā€™s a lot of sub-par bread to suffer through. But now I mostly have it down, and my bread is definitely cheaper than the loaves I used to buy, which were about $4 (from Our Daily Bread or Bread Alone or Pain Dā€™Avignon).

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I do bake bread fairly regularly - I am not very good at it, nor do I have much time for it but I really donā€™t like much of the bread easily available at markets near me it is either very low quality and full of shortening or really spendy and still mediocre

unless I have time and luxury to experiment I generally use either the bread machine or the NYT no knead method.

The bread machine makes only OK bread not great bread but it can make it while I sleep and the NYT no knead bread is great - if limited to one type. It requires planning ahead but the timing fits in well with a workaday schedule

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I bake bread quite regularly. The only reason that I donā€™t do it more is no one eats enough bread in this house! Generally, I make a loaf of bread on Sunday since we all enjoy a brunch-like meal [but it is really a late breakfast.] I make all of our hamburger buns, pita, and when I know our meal plan includes distinctly Western food, I will make rustic baguettes or boules knowing that I will have to throw a lot into the trash or make a ton of bread crumbs.

I eat bread every day but make my own sourdough only once a week (used to be twice a week). I donā€™t like ā€œbreadā€ sold in most stores here. Just tasteless spongy rubbish! People (I know of) donā€™t care about all the nasty things that go into their bread, they just want to eat at a great speed and be done with it so they can play with their phones again. I like to take my time and enjoy eating (my) sourdoughs/everything.

Iā€™m thankful to have a miller in the area who grinds and bakes all sorts of bread and sourdough. In many of my (cheese and lunch) photos I do include the breads both of my own and those bought from the miller.

I tried the no knead bread several times and they turned out very good most of the time. However, I need to let the dough rest for 12-18 hours. So I really want to plan ahead. Sometime I am just not that great in planning ahead. It may be something I need to get better at.

a, b, and d) never have and probably never will. Iā€™m surrounded my excellent bread where I live.

I donā€™t eat very much bread, but when I do, I make it myself. My mother baked a lot of the bread we had as kids and I picked up the habit from her. I started my own sourdough starter a few years ago and since then I have concentrated on using it instead of commercial yeast to raise my breads, no matter what type Iā€™m making.

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I told my family I was declaring this to be The Winter of Bread. I had just discovered the stretch and fold method and had ambitions to translate recipes into this method since I donā€™t have a stand mixer. After checking out a bunch of books from the library I realized Peter Reinhartā€™s had already done all the work for me and bought Artisan Bread Everyday.

I now have a very happy sourdough starter in the fridge and have been making way too much bread while I try out different recipes and practice shaping and scoring.

Itā€™s also nice that once you mix the dough and it cold ferments in the fridge overnight you have up to 4 days to bake it.

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I have not baked bread at home - well focaccia a couple of times which came out pretty good. We used to have take turns on ā€œbread dutyā€ at culinary school to make the bread for the day, and it intimidated me. All the kneading and shaping. But, I plan to try my hand at some biscuits for Thanksgiving. Weā€™ll see how they turn out and go from there.

I bake bread whenever Iā€™m having people over for dinner. I keep a loaf of commercial bread in the freezer and take out a slice or two every once in a while, but donā€™t eat enough to warrant making bread for myself. I love the no-knead loaves and also do a kick-ass potato roll.

My mother used to bake all our bread when I was a kid. In the summers, when my brothers were working in the wheat fields (and taking 3 sandwiches each for lunch), sheā€™d get up early and bake 4 loaves every other day.

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How long can they last? I have put bread loafs in the refrigerator, and they can last more than a week for sure.

I bake bread now & then. I use the ā€˜No-Kneadā€™ method or Alton Brownā€™s ā€˜Basic Breadā€™. When Iā€™m taking lunch to work (sandwiches) I bake Kaiser rolls. Itā€™s streaky so sometimes itā€™s two batches a week & then sometimes not for a month. I use this recipe for Kaiser rolls: http://www.breadworld.com/recipes/Kaiser-Rolls

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Everything I have read (and now experience confirms) that the refridge is the worst place. Most bread loaves I divide into 3 and bag each third inside an outer bag then freeze. I either take out slices or a whole inner bag depending on how much I need. Iā€™m thinking Iā€™ve had some for upwards of 3 months in the freezer. I do the same thing with Brioche & Ciabatta rolls but those go 1 to a bag in the inner bag. I reuse the bags several times for more bread before the bags give up.

I agree with Audrey, donā€™t refrigerate, it dries out the bread more quickly than at room temp. In the freezer, I usually use a loaf up in a few weeks, it stays very well for up to a month. If Iā€™m in a hurry I microwave on defrost after I chip off a slice or two.

Can you share your kick-ass recipe? I was thinking of potato rolls for turkey day then found a freezable biscuit recipe. Iā€™m not sure which will be easier for my first time!!

Isnā€™t the internet wonderful? I was going to type it out but then just googled a few key phrases and voila! Theyā€™re really rich with the butter, sugar, and milk, for years there were children in my family who only ate these and pie for Thanksgiving.

(http://bakeoutsidethebox.blogspot.com/2012/05/potato-yeast-rolls.html)

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Thanks Palousienne! I saw that recipe on the Internet and was wondering how took they are. I made the biscuits today and they are in the freezer. Not sure how they will turn out. Can these be made in advance and frozen?

They can be frozen, theyā€™re a little bit better fresh but no one has ever noticed when Iā€™ve served them reheated out of the freezer! This recipe (in a much longer form that explains all the steps) is from The Complete Book of Breads, by Bernard Clayton where itā€™s simply called Dinner Rolls. He suggests doing fancy shapes (bowknots, cloverleafs, fantans, etc) with them and Iā€™ve done that through the years sometimes, but usually I just pack the all together in a pan and enjoy the soft sides that result when theyā€™re touching after theyā€™ve risen.

Every 2 or 3 weeks in the cold weather, the Lahey methodā€¦Always comes out impressive

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