Frugal Friday - Frugal Baking tips

Some of my friends are always thinking I spend a fortune on grocery bills. I don't. I bake a lot, yes. I agree. Most of the times I give away lot of things that I baked, I agree to that too. But, the purpose it serves is more valuable than the the money spent on ingredients. I also try not to bake anything exotic buying specialty ingredients. For example, unless I have frozen the berries that I bought for less in summer, you will not see me baking strawberry cupcakes or pies in winter. Small things make a little bit difference if not a lot when you follow some guidelines.

Here are the pointers that I follow for anyone who might agree with me.

1. If you are baking with the small oven, you don't have to worry a lot about it. But when you are turning on the oven to bake something in a standard sized oven, it takes quite a bit of power. More power, more energy bill. Most recipes tell you to preheat the oven to a certain temperature at least 15 - 30 minutes before placing the tray to bake. Have you ever wondered why? It is because it takes a while for the temperature to be uniform all around the oven. I don't do this. The reason is I have an oven thermometer. It costs about 4 dollars and is very useful. You place that on the rack where you are going to place your baking tray. For example when baking cake, it is on the center rack. When baking pizza, it is on the lower rack and so on. When the oven is preheated (beeps in my oven), check the reading on the thermometer. If it is showing you what the temperature setting you wanted, you are good to go. Start baking.

2. Most of the times, I try to bake more than one item when I turn the oven on. Loss of power in turning it on all over again is saved. But then, you don't want to bake too much and waste it. So, use your discretion.

3. Bread flour is expensive than all purpose flour. If you replace 1/2 - 1 TBSP of all purpose flour in a cup of flour with vital wheat gluten, you can use that instead. I have done it and like the results very much.

4. Even though some perfectionists say buttermilk tastes better in a baked good than its substitution, unless you have homemade buttermilk, it is expensive to buy just for that. Add 1 TBSP of vinegar or lemon juice to a cup and top it with milk to make one cup of sour milk and use it in place of buttermilk. Or dilute yogurt with some water or milk and use that instead.

5. Butter is expensive compared to oil. Even when you cannot use oil in every recipe that calls for butter, you could in most cases where the recipe calls for melted butter. But, use 1/3 cup oil in place of 1/2 cup melted butter. If you are worried about losing the flavor that butter gives, add 1/2 tsp of butter extract to the batter/dough.

6. One of the frequently used ingredient in baking is nuts of different kinds. Buy them when on sale and freeze. You will save quite a bit there.

7. Extracts - go easy on them. Just because a recipe calls for cappuccino extract, don't buy it. Your kitchen cupboards will start looking like mine. Yes, I am guilty of buying too many extracts. Use part of liquid as strongly brewed coffee instead to get the same flavor if the recipe calls for espresso powder or cappuccino extract. Lemon, orange and lime extracts can be replaced by using their zest and juice in the batter. If a recipe calls for coconut extract, use coconut milk as part of liquid to get the same effect if you don't have coconut extract on hand.

8. Yeast - Don't buy those individual packs of yeast. They are convenient agreed, but very expensive if you are into regular bread baking. Don't buy those jars either. Best bet is to buy in costco or BJs. I can get yeast enough for two years for about 4 dollars (you know how much bread baking I do, don't you?).

9. Baking chocolate bars are more expensive than cocoa powder. You can use the tips given in this post to replace them effectively. 

10. Parchment paper is expensive. I hardly line my pans with it. If you grease with shortening and flour well, it won't stick. In more than a decade of baking experience, the cake stuck to the pan only twice for me. That is probably because I had not done a good job of greasing and flouring.

I know there are many of you who are silent readers. But, I need you to speak up for these posts. You might have a great idea. If you do, let others benefit from it. If you don't, I need you to tell me that you like it. Maybe you like recipes and not these tips. Whatever it is, will you tell me?

Happy Friday everyone. Pin It

Frugal Friday - Best buys from Thrift Stores

First time I came to know about a thrift store was about 4 years back. My neighbor told me about 'Good Will' when I was talking to her about how expensive cake stands are. She said there will tons of them at reasonable price. That is when I first went to the 'Good Will' store near my place. I was shocked to see how cheap everything is when compared to the retail stores. I agree that they are used and not everyone wants to use the 'used stuff' including me.Here is the list of items you could get from the thrift stores. This is just my opinion.
Anything brand new with tag/seal on is fine. You will probably pay half of the full price on them.

Kitchen appliances like blender, mixer, bread machine, food processor, dry grinder, waffle makers etc are a steal in a thrift store. I wish I knew about it before I bought all of them paying full price. If any of my gadgets break, I am buying it from a thrift store. No reason to pay full price when you can get it for a fraction of the price. Best deal I have got: ice cream machine brand new - 5 dollars, brand new bread machine - 5 dollars that I picked up for my friend (Can you believe that it is the same as what I have and mine was 99 dollars to be exact in Target). Most of the thrift stores take back electronics if they don't work.

Cake pans, cookie sheets, loaf pans, baking utensils are so cheap that if I already didn't have a stash of them, I would be buying everything. Remember that you don't get everything at all the times. Best way is to visit often to find steals. I go once every two weeks (mainly for my blog props). Since it is on the way to my grocery store, it is just another 10 - 15 minutes extra time spent.

Books if the ones they sell interest you, are cheap in a thrift stores. Best deal I have got is 12 books for a dollar. If you are alright borrowing books from the library, you should be fine buying it here too. To be honest these deals are cheaper than what you spend on gas to go to the library. I buy mainly cook books and kids' books from here.


For the food bloggers only:
99 % of my food photography props are from the thrift stores. I cannot justify spending full price on a hobby. When you don't care about having the entire set of plates, bowls and cutlery, best place to get a bargain is a thrift store. One of my friends was concerned about what the plate or the bowl has been used before for. If you are alright eating out of a plate in a restaurant which serves all kinds of food, you should be alright getting serve ware from a thrift store. Hot water and soap pretty much cleans them up. I however do not use these for our daily use. These are exclusively for the blog pictures.

These thrift stores sell a lot of other things not related to food at a very good price. I usually get the ones which are brand new or with a tag if it is not one of the things mentioned above.



Happy Friday everyone. Pin It

Frugal Friday - Blog link

If I could, I would grow everything I need and use.
I grow a few vegetables and if they are too much, I try to freeze them. I sometimes buy in bulk from a truck patch when it is really cheap and either make jams or spicy compotes and freeze in individual containers. I have even made pesto and frozen when my garden gave me too much of basil. Tried drying herbs that were grown in the garden. Buy berries for cheap and freeze. There is one thing that I haven't ventured into. Yet.

That is canning.

When I stumbled across this blog, I was amazed how organized this lady is in canning the home grown stuff and using it up for the entire year.  I thought of sharing it all with you.

'Kathie' of 'Two Frog Home' writes about her canning. She has recipes, tips about frugal living. On the top of it, she teaches canning classes locally. The post that impressed me the most is 'Pantry Building'. I wish my pantry was that organized.

This is not a link exchange. I wanted to share the blogs with you who impressed me with their frugal living ideas. After all, when you spend 3 dollars, you are spending way more than that since it is after tax money and money is tight for many of us right now.
 
If you have a cool link to share with others about this topic, leave a comment or send me an email. I will visit the blog and try to introduce that blog on friday. Blogging is all about sharing the knowledge. You agree with me, don't you?

Happy Friday everyone. Pin It