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Five years ago, Toronto musician Elizabeth Morris began baking bread from scratch because it was fun - and a lot cheaper than "awful" store-bought brands.

Well, at least the first part is still true.

"Now, with the price of rye flour the way it is ... I'm questioning whether we're going to make rye bread any more," says Ms. Morris, 53, who restocks her homemade bread supply once a week. "And that makes me sad."

In recent months, food costs have risen faster than Ms. Morris's multigrain bread, forcing avid bakers across the country to temper their doughy cravings or switch to second-tier ingredients in order to save money.

After a summer that has seen soaring costs for ingredients such as flour and chocolate - driven partly by high fuel costs - home-baking enthusiasts are feeling deflated.

"It's getting to the point where you really can't afford to bake," says Hilda Durling, 75, a great-grandmother from Bridgetown, N.S.

For three years, Ms. Durling's apple pie has nabbed first prize at the town's annual Ciderfest apple-pie competition.

One year, a local man paid $500 for her pie, all of it donated to local charities. But lately, Ms. Durling's five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren have had to settle for fewer treats, since her baking schedule has dropped from several days a week to one. And when she does bake, she forgoes some premium ingredients.

"I don't even look at Crisco any more," she says, noting that even her second choice for shortening, Fluffo, has risen from $1.19 to $2.39 at her local supermarket.

According to the most recent Canadian Consumer Price Index, there has been a 4.3-per-cent rise in prices for food purchased from stores over the past year, led by a 13.2-per-cent rise in prices for bakery products. Price hikes for other food products closely related to grain, such as breakfast cereal, rice, pasta, flour and flour-based mixes have continued to increase in the 12 months to July, 2008, according to the index.

The hikes are easily noticeable on store shelves. Ms. Morris says she used to pay $10 for five kilograms of rye flour; now it's $25 for the same amount. Other baking ingredients, including chocolate, nuts and dairy, have also increased in price.

Many bakers have had to resort to creative ways to avoid the pinch.

After a close reading of her grocery bills left Tanya Belanger disgusted, she began taking inventory of her cupboards, then finding recipes that called for only those ingredients. On her blog, where she goes by "Sunday Baker," she issued a similar "pantry challenge" to her readers.

"I had a jar of apricot preserves sitting in the pantry for the longest time because we are not apricot lovers," Ms. Belanger wrote in an e-mail. "I made apricot bars with them and they were a hit"

But she says that because packaged food prices have risen with the cost of ingredients, she's actually baking more.

Ms. Belanger - a 31-year-old Wisconsin resident who

bakes for friends and family - now buys ingredients in bulk when she spots them on sale. She then bakes large quantities of buns or breads and freezes them.

"Some of this sounds extreme," she says, but "we realized that all it takes is some preplanning and a few days of hard work, and you can have a pantry and freezer full of homemade goods that cost you at least half of what you would pay buying it prepackaged at the store."

Others are seeking substitutes. Ever since Ivonne Mellozzi and her friend, Lisa Cifelli, co-founded the online community Daring Bakers two years ago, they've been issuing monthly baking challenges to their members, who number 1,100 from several different countries.

Normally the challenges go from croissants to crème brûlée, but in the past few months the duo noticed that people were dropping out because of the prohibitive costs of some ingredients. The recipes now include substitutions.

"If someone can't find hazelnuts, or if they cost something ridiculous, it is okay if they use almonds - same with [specialty] flour or chocolate," says Ms. Mellozzi, who's 34 and lives in Toronto.

Still, there have been some sacrifices. Ms. Belanger has given up cheesecake. Ms. Morris has cut down on her rye bread production.

But Ms. Morris says she's keeping the homemade bagels, sweet rolls, sandwich breads, flatbreads and multigrain varieties in her repertoire.

"We're not going to go back to buying bread. It's just awful."