Bread Journal: October 20th, 2009

The first truly satisfying loaf from my sourdough starter has taken shape.  This organic, whole wheat loaf weighs about 1 kilo (I say this because I added 750g of flour and there is obviously considerable water content).  In terms of ingredients (flour, 2 tsp salt, 2tsp oil), this loaf cost me about 1.2 euros.   It should get cheaper once I find a good source of bulk flour.   Note: I still haven’t factored in the costs of baking in our mini-oven yet. I’ll get to that later.

Current bread prices for comparisson:

• A 1 lb loaf of bread from our local bakery in our California days used to cost us $4-5 dollars.  That’s over $8-10 a kilo.  I know, I know, dollars are worth less than euros but still!
• Trader Joe’s very inexpensive organic wheat loaf  is about $2 a loaf at this time.   Their loaf doesn’t weigh more than a pound though, so it’s only half as much bread as I’ve made in my last batch.
• Specialty breads in French bakeries (such as whole wheat, sourdough, organic etc) can cost 3-5 euros per kilo.

So my bread is cheaper.  It’s also damned good

And then there are the fringe benefits like knowing exactly what is in my bread (all three ingredients), knowing when it was baked etc.  I also grew my own starter from scratch, which makes me feel a little bit closer to self-sufficiency.  I’ll never need to buy yeast again (even though it’s only 20cents a pack!).

My favorite fringe benefit, however, has got to be the smell of warm bread filing up the house.  It makes even the simplest meal a heavenly experience.