Why Use a Bread Knife?
First off, it’s important to note the Top 3 Features of a Bread Knife.
Long {7″-9″} Blade
The long blade enables you to effortlessly slice your bread with one swipe, making a cleaner, more uniform, cut. I personally prefer a 9″ blade.
Serrated Blade
The serrated blade helps to “snag” the crispy crust and slice through cleanly–without having to saw your way through. Be careful with the serrated edges! I once cut right through my finger when slicing our bread! I had no idea my knife was that sharp!
Sharp Blade
A sharp blade is needed to cut through the bread without shredding it.
All three of these features prevent one dreaded thing to happen to your homemade bread:: Shredding! If you’ve just worked hard on making your homemade bread, intending to use it for sandwiches, turning it to nothingness with one swipe is not what you’re going for. Or spending all day attempting to make uniform slices.
If you have a good knife, you’ll find that slicing homemade bread doesn’t have to be difficult. With a little bit of practice you’ll be slicing perfect sandwich bread slices!
Cost of Bread Knives
You can find many bread knives for under $20. It doesn’t have to be anything extravagant, just as long as it has the three main features listed above. Even after putting out the money to buy a quality bread knife, you will still come out saving money by making your own homemade bread.
Cost of One Month Supply of Store Bought Bread {2 loaves/wk}= $20 {buying from discount bread store}
Cost of One Month Supply of Homemade Bread {2 loaves/wk}= $9.20 {Organic at that!}
Within 2 months, my knife as paid for itself! And then some, if you want to get technical about organic vs. non-organic.
Do you make your own homemade bread? What is your favorite?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
“Sharp” is the most key word!! I have a 2nd-hand knife set with a serrated bread knife, and always thought that bread knife did a good job. Then I got my Cutco set and oh my, I didn’t realize how much effort it was taking to slice bread with my non-Cutco bread knife! Besides not wanting to shred your bread, you also don’t want to smash and squash the loaf while you’re trying to slice it – if that’s happening you’re knife isn’t very sharp. With a good knife, you can just glide right through the loaf, crusty-crust and all, as if it was softened butter
This is a GREAT frugal kitchen gadget!
I am happy to say that I now make all our bread, including white, whole wheat, rye, sour cream and chive (oh, yes!), flatbreads, buns for hamburgers and hot dogs, sandwich buns, dinner rolls, cinnamon rolls, cuban bread to have with soup, raisin bread and a hovis type. I am currently working on getting pita, naan and tortillas right.
About five years ago all I could turn out was something sort of brick-like. Then I got a bread machine which I wore out using the dough cycle. Now I use my stand mixer and knead by hand. Never going back to store bread, even if it was free.
I would love to get organic flour/grain, but I don’t have a mill (yet) and organic flour is not widely available here, screaming expensive when you do find it.