These bread mixes use six basic ingredients and cost only pennies per loaf. Having a mix ready to go makes the bread-making process super efficient and low-effort. A one-loaf mix fits perfectly in an 8oz instant coffee jar.
The mix ingredients are: Flour, sugar, yeast, salt, margarine and powdered milk (not pictured).
I like to make up four to six mixes at a time.
Here are the finished mixes lined up in the back of my frig.
Download the bread mix recipe here:
Preparedness tip:
When the pandemic was declared, the store shelves were immediately emptied of bread; and yeast, flour and other baking staples. Thereafter, they were unavailable or in short supply. As a regular bread maker, I had a supply of yeast and flour on hand, plus some DIY bread mixes made up; and a couple of freshly-made loaves in the freezer. Never expecting a pandemic or grocery shortage, I’d considered that modest stockpile to merely be a convenience. But it ended up getting me through the the shortage.
In addition to the bread mixes, I try to keep an extra unopened 4 oz jar of yeast in the frig, and a spare bag (or 2) of flour in the freezer, plus however much is in my flour canister. Flour came back to the store shelves fairly quickly, but four months into the shortage, I was down to less than half a jar of yeast. This month, jars of yeast finally came back to the store shelves. Even if you don’t do a lot of baking, don’t be afraid to buy yeast by the jar, and don’t worry if you can’t use it up before the sell-by date. In my experience, it keeps well past its sell-by date.
Slicing made easy.
Do you dislike slicing a bread machine loaf as much as I do? The loaf shape is awful for slicing. To make the process happier: Cut the loaf into quarters, and then slice and use one quarter at a time. The other three quarters go in the freezer. When I need one from the freezer, it thaws in just a few minutes, or 30 seconds in the microwave.
My bread machine is this one, which has been discontinued, but there are still some models in the Amazon warehouse. I’ve never been picky about what features are on my bread machine. I’d probably be happy with any machine at any price.
Desert Island Music!
(It’s the Slicethelife 2020 Album Draft!)
Which ten music albums would you want with you when stranded on a desert island? Ten bloggers (me included), are participating in a 10-round desert island ‘album draft’. Round 2 is currently underway. All of the album draft bloggers except me are ‘proper’ music bloggers; and some are musicians as well.
The link below will take you to a listing of the draft picks so far. Check in now and from time to time over the next eight weeks, to see what albums have been drafted and why they were selected. Feel free to drop us a comment about the picks.
A selection from the Run-Sew-Read picks so far:
run | sew | read 
We bought a bread maker at a yard sale of all places still in the box never used. We want to actually use the thing. I’ll send this to Jennifer…it looks great.
This draft is a lot of fun. You love music like the rest of us so you are more than qualified plus you have great taste… I never write about albums so I ended up rewriting it over and over. I never know if it’s too long or too short…or to cover every song. I’m learning more about other albums and other bloggers which is a fun thing.
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That may be the best way to get a bread machine. The new ones are disproportionately pricey, imo. My prior one came from Goodwill. I don’t think it had ever been used.
I’m enjoying the album draft. Thanks for the confidence boost. I do love music enough to put my choices out there with the experts and not know any better, LOL. The best part is that I’m going to come away with a bunch of albums and artists I never knew I’d like.
Different topic: MLB starts for real tonight! Until yesterday I was still a doubter that there would be games. I’ll be listening to the Royals vs Houston.
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We have had some suprise picks and I love them. Well the Who has done great so far.
I can’t wait to watch baseball! I’m so happy we will have something now.
I look at the box scores for every Dodger game and I’ve missed that so much…and just watching.
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The Who has indeed done well! I knew no one else would beat me to the Hyde Park pick, but I still wanted to make it early; not after there’d already been five other Who albums picked, which is looking like a possibility. 😀
I know what you mean about not having scores to check. I try to have the radio on for every Royals game. I don’t listen very closely, but it’s always there in the room as part of my summer evening environment. I can’t believe how much I’ve missed it. Just a little more than 3 hours to wait now, and hopefully not that long if they have a pregame broadcast, which they definitely should.
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You never know what will be picked. I was going to pick “Live At Leeds” for the third round…well that didn’t work lol. I never thought about it going first.
I’m looking forward to see what Hans picks tomorrow.
I am a huge fan but I didn’t realize how big a fan of baseball I was until it shut down…that was my routine…even in the offseason I would read about trades… but I could not read about it this year because it was so depressing.
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I bet you weren’t the only one who had to adjust their list when Live at Leeds got picked. It certainly put the pressure on me to justify picking a second live Who album. You got the White Album though. That was a big one. I loved the Dylan pick, and Coldplay. Those two give me something new or forgotten to listen to.
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I think there will be more Dylan, Beatles, and I would not be surprised with another Who selection with Tommy and Quadrophenia out there.
The surprises so far for me is…No Zeppelin or Stones yet. I have one “out of left field” pick for later on…I know my next one but I’m looking for the one after that.
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Agree to all of that. I’m really looking forward to seeing the ‘left field’ ones. I would say two 10,000 Maniacs albums in the first round might have been the first left field moment. I didn’t expect it.
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Yes I agree with that…and they belonged but who would have guessed that? I want to move my odd one up but if you do that…you could lose out on another one.
It’s funny because I go to a lot of these blogger’s sites and I thought I could guess…so far I’ve struck out on all but one.
See how I miss baseball? “left field” and “struck out”
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Yes, you are ready for baseball with those references! For the reasons you mention, I’m expecting later rounds of the draft to be heavy with left field choices, which will be fun.
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My bread machine was also purchased unused and still in the box at a thrift store! 😀 This is a wonderful idea!
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That’s the best way to get one! I’ll definitely check the thrift shops when I need another one.
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