Cheap ingredients

[K8memphis]

Another idea is to buy spices & stuff at a bulk place that sells 'by the pound'. The by the pound prices will give you a coronary until you realize how light they are and how for pennies you can replenish old weak stuff & purchase teensy amounts for way way less than those dang $4, $5 a hit bottles & cans of spices at the grocery & specialty stores.

[Wendy DeBord]

they claim fake vanilla's not discernable in baked goods (Cook's Illustrated)

After I read this article, I was really surprised, as I had come to believe the "fact" that nothing tastes like real pure vanilla extract. I re-created the taste test with my staff at the cake shop, and

no one there could tell the diff either. It convinced me. Call me blasphemous, but I have no problem using artificial vanilla, even if I can afford the more expensive "authentic" stuff.

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I've made the extract switch permently too. For anyone in the business, I get x3 strength from our baking supplier.......it gives even more flavor impact then reg. strength artifical. It's worth the search, I think.

(I don't believe/agree with everything from Cooks but their panel taste testing of base ingredients seem to always be right on.)

[etalanian]

Four quickies: Buy butter on sale and freeze it. It freezes well, wrapped in plastic and then foil, and you can get some very good buys that way. It keeps for months. But don't switch to margarine. You will sacrifice valuable texture and depth of flavor.

Trader Joe's is wonderful for butter, cream, nuts and bulk chocolate.

I love the Ambrosia brand chocolate chips at the warehouse stores. They are much more flavorful than Nestle. I also find the store brands to often be better than the name brand chips. Just be sure to check the label for ingredients.

I was divorced once, years ago, and my life is so much better for it. You will land on your feet and one day (soon) you will turn back and say, "Wow! That's the best thing that ever happened to me!"

Good luck to you!

[pastrymama]

I find that a mixture of half butter and half a good margarine makes very good cookies if the main flavor is not butter. If it is chocolate chip or lemon or oatmeal they taste great, I just wouldn't do that to make a butter cookie or shortbread. I've used imitation vanilla for baked goods for years, the only things i put the real deal in is cream brulee or ice creams etc. then I use beans and real vanilla.

[Kris]

I too buy my butter at a wholesale club (BJ's). Right now it's averaging about $1.80 a pound. It's the store brand, but it works well for me.

I also buy my flour in bulk - but I only buy Gold Medal all purpose. I don't skimp on the no-name brands since I don't know what the protein content (gluten) is in those off-brands.

I also buy 25 bag of Domino's sugar from the wholesale club.

[Shalmanese]

What about trying different types of desserts? Instead of making a chocolate chip cookie, maybe do a 1/2 chocolate, 1/2 peanut butter cookie. I know dried apricots here are about 1/3rd the price of dried cranberries. Use walnuts instead of almonds. Buy whole nuts and grind into nut meal instead. If you traditionally cook with booze, then maybe consider switching to something else.

In the end, your butter/sugar/flour/eggs contribute about 80% of the bulk but only about 20% of the cost of a baked good. It's far more effective to cut from the "other" category.

[digigirl]

For sugar - take a look at your store brand, rather than reaching for the name brand. I only recently discovered that not all sugar is cane sugar - some of it is beet sugar, which apparently doesn't always act the same in baking as cane sugar (although I haven't personally experienced this).

At first, I thought I had to buy C&H or Imperial, which specify cane. Then I noticed the much less expensive store brand also specifies - right on the front - "Cane Sugar." Yay!

So, be sure to check. A lot of times store brands are even made by the same manufacturer as the name brands, but cost much less.

Oh, and on the wholesale club buying - yes, often much less expensive. However, it is important to price things on a per unit basis (per ounce, per pound, whatever). On certain things, I find that grocery store prices are just as good as or better than warehouse prices and if I don't need the larger size... (specifically things like soft drinks - but the point is, make sure you check).

[petite tête de chou]

My two cents...perhaps you could save your pennies and buy the quality ingredients that you actually want? If it was me, I'd be eyeing that bag of crappy chocolate chips, watery "butter" and fake vanilla and be reminded of the divorce.

[browniebaker]

Gary, I am sorry for what you are going through. From past personal experience, I know how bad it feels to be transferring money to divorce lawyers. I have a few frugal measures in baking:

I get the best prices on most pantry and dairy items from Costco (flour, sugar, everyday butter, milk, eggs, rolled oats), Trader Joe's (Plugra butter, baking powder, nuts, dried fruits), and Honeyville Grains (rolled oats, dried macaroon coconut, milk powder, vital wheat gluten).

For serious baking I use the best bourbon vanilla but save money by buying it in the double-strength in the largest bottle I can find. I use only half the amount called for in a recipe. Vanilla keeps for a very long time.

However, for everyday baking, such as in heavily chocolate-flavored cookies, I save money by using CVS's Gold Emblem (store brand) "Premium Imitation Vanilla with Pure Vanilla Added." This has performed excellently in blind taste-tests, and I'm very happy with it -- and with the savings: 8 ounces sells for $0.89 when CVS has a sale on its Gold Emblem spices.

I save money by using Costco's Kirkland (store-brand) butter for everyday use, as in brownies; it costs $1.87 a pound. But where butter flavor matters, as in shortbread, I use Plugra but by it cheap from Trader Joe's.

Bread flour often costs more than all-purpose flour. I make my own bread flour by adding one teaspoon of vital wheat gluten to one cup of all-purpose flour.

Brown sugar costs more than white granulated sugar. It can be cheaper to make your own brown sugar by adding one or more teaspoons of molasses to white granulated sugar. This is especially easy to do if the brown sugar is to be mixed together with other ingredients, as in a batter.

If bulk purchases are larger than you have room to store, see whether you can find a friend or friends to split the purchase with you. The vital wheat gluten and milk powder I buy from Honeyville Grains keep practically forever so I don't mind having a large store of them in sealed Rubbermaid Roughneck Totes in the basement.

I could get extreme and tell you that I'm so frugal I avoid baking in the warm months when the A/C is on since I refuse to heat up the house just to spend money to cool it down, but you may be a bigger baking-fiend than I . . . .

[Angeline7270]

I just made a second purchase at a place called Bulkfoods.com. The price are great, and the shipping is free, although they do charge a 4.95 handling fee per order, regardless of size.

[Gary]

Again, I really appreciate all the info and moral support. I was living the perfect life (beautiful wife, great kids, nice house, good job). Now everything is being turned upside down. My wife had no interest in my repeated request to get into marriage counseling. She probably had her mind made up a year ago and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I dutifully went to the therapist to discover what made me so unappealing to my wife. The end result was nothing more than a penchant for avoiding conflict. I sure wish there was a better reason for ending this marriage. I could have accepted it more readily if there was infidelity, abuse, drugs, laziness, etc... but there was none of this (on my part anyway).

Now my therapy consists of pastry and baking. Bless all of you for the tips and tricks to stretch my dollars even further.

I've never really used my freezer for bakery item storage. I think that I'll start wrapping and freezing quality butter that I find on sale. I might even make up a bunch of cookie dough and freeze it too... in cookie size balls or logs. Fritattas with leftovers may be on the horizon too.