Fresh commercial white bread

[Stephen Tashiro]

I miss the experience of having fresh commercial white bread. I'm trying to figure out why it doesn't happen.

In my childhood, the family ate Sunbeam bread and, with the correct timing, you could shop for bread on the day of its weekly delivery to the store. It was fresh.

Several things have changed. Perhaps, in my current location, I'm not near a commercial bakery.

Pehaps it's due to the change in bread recipes. Modern Sunbeam white bread has a coarser texture than the Sunbeam bread of my childhood.

Perhaps its due to the local custom of locating the bread aisle across from refrigerated cases. There is often condensation inside the bags. (I notice many local households keep their bread in the refrigerator, so they wouldn't know what fresh bread tasted like anyway.)

[Van Huskey]

Not sure if it is part of the cause of what you are seeing but the mineral content of the water used to bake any bread has a huge impact on the texture and taste.

[Jim Becker]

Your market's in-store bakery can help with this... :D

[Robert Engel]

Sorry to have to say this, but white bread isn't real bread. Its what's left after all the nutrition is bleached out.

Stop eating it immediately. :-D

[Alan Rutherford]

If you can live with unconventional loaf shapes, having to slice your own bread and a complete lack of preservatives, get a bread machine. I've been using one for over 25 years. Saved thousands of dollars and had bread that was healthier and tasted better whenever I wanted it. We are never more than about an hour and a half from a fresh warm loaf of white bread. Our current favorite is about half white and half white whole wheat (yes, there is such a thing) but that takes longer. You can use the timer on the machine and have bread ready in the morning.

Our Panasonic SD-YD250 is about 6 years old and replaced a similar model which wore out after many years and hundreds of loaves. You can get fancy with it but we seldom do. I make pizza dough with it. If you get one, you will wonder why you ever missed commercial bread.

BTW, you can freeze it but don't keep it in the refrigerator. It gets stale in the refrigerator, not in the freezer.

[roger wiegand]

Modern commercial breads have been engineered to have a shelf life of a month or more. Your bread may be coming from a bakery 1000 miles away. Find a local baker to support, or make your own. There are recipes online for DIY WonderBread if that's what you'd like to achieve.

(When I first learned about tortillas I was taught that 24 hours was about the maximum age that was acceptable, that an hour or two was better (true). I was horrified to find a package of tortilla-shaped objects in the grocery store that had a "best by" date nearly six months in the future!)

[Shawn Pixley]

Your market's in-store bakery can help with this... :D

I so agree. Though I don't eat white bread, our local Von's (Safeway Corp) bakes bread every day. If you go in between 5-6 PM it is still warm and you can watch them package it. Hard to beat that freshness short of making it yourself (which is the best way). My family likes the italian loaf. I go for a rustica of some sort.

[Stephen Tashiro]

Your market's in-store bakery can help with this... :D

No, the markets in-store bakery sells a completely different product! I'm familiar with baking bread and I have often done it. However, I would also enjoy having the old fashioned commercial bread. If the the nutrition is "bleached-out", so much the better. I don't need more nutrition.

[Malcolm McLeod]

Modern commercial breads have been engineered to have a shelf life of a month or more. Your bread may be coming from a bakery 1000 miles away. Find a local baker to support, or make your own. There are recipes online for DIY WonderBread if that's what you'd like to achieve.

(When I first learned about tortillas I was taught that 24 hours was about the maximum age that was acceptable, that an hour or two was better (true). I was horrified to find a package of tortilla-shaped objects in the grocery store that had a "best by" date nearly six months in the future!)

Giggle 'calcium propionate'. Big name bakeries use it to inhibit mold growth - - and depending on the bread product's moisture content, you can usually get a month or so before it gets grey and fuzzy. Leave it out and you get a shelf life of 2-3 days if you're lucky. Same if you bake your own, unless you regularly irradiate the kitchen to sterilize.

Don't like chemicals in your food? Breads will probably double in price. Take your pick, 'poison' or poverty.

OK, OK. You can blame me a little. I have helped automate the mass production of CalPro.

[Bert Kemp]

I can't for the life of me figure why people eat white bread. Its so bland and with all the different breads out there to try. White bread yuc:D

[Mark Blatter]

I bake too, about 90% whole wheat using hard white winter wheat. I grind my own of course. (Sorry my snobbishness is showing through). I do buy sliced bread and am always amazed at how long it lasts today. It goes stale way before mold starts to grow. I presumed it was being irradiated, but now I know it has more 'additives' that keep it 'fresh'.

I bake four loaves at a time, use one immediately and freeze the other three. Pulled from the freezer, it is almost as good as fresh from the oven.

[Mike Null]

After spending so much time in Germany we"re spoiled. There just aren't good breads here. But----German bread, delicious as it is, is very expensive and like most French breads, has a one day shelf life. But man, is it good!

We do buy baguettes and ciabatta once in a while. For my pb&j I use oat bran.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Fifty years ago, had Fridays off. Would go by the bakery, and have lady running outlet store go get us a couple loaves that hadn't been wrapped yet. We would sit in car and eat them right there. Only thing that could have made it better was some butter for our still hot fresh baked bread.

[John T Barker]

Sorry to have to say this, but white bread isn't real bread. Its what's left after all the nutrition is bleached out.

Stop eating it immediately. :-D

Try European "white" bread...that's worth eating.

[Rich Riddle]

I can't for the life of me figure why people eat white bread. Its so bland and with all the different breads out there to try. White bread yuc:DIt makes good toast.

[Richard McComas]

I grew up on Howdy Doody and Wonder bread. Didn't know any better at the time.

[Jim Koepke]

Breads often depend on the dominate local bakeries. Currently I am very happy with the Franz Bakery in Portland, Oregon. One of their breads in particular, Columbia River - Sweet Dark, is great for all my needs. It is an almost black whole wheat loaf with no HFCS. It is as good for toast as it is for a PB&J, a BLT or a grilled cheese.

A good white bread is great, but it is difficult to find such a thing in today's market.

jtk

[Chuck Pickering]

I like to make bread. Have a bread machine that does fair. I even bought a Kitchen Aid stand mixer just for bread making. My x wife made good Italian bread, and I've been trying to figure out the process for years.
Anyone got a good Italian bread recipe?

Chuck

[Dave Lehnert]

I worked at a large supermarket (Cincinnati) for years and it was not uncommon for commercial bread to still be warm when it came in.

I like to buy the frozen bread dough and bake it at home.

[Steve Peterson]

If you can live with unconventional loaf shapes, having to slice your own bread and a complete lack of preservatives, get a bread machine. I've been using one for over 25 years. Saved thousands of dollars and had bread that was healthier and tasted better whenever I wanted it. We are never more than about an hour and a half from a fresh warm loaf of white bread. Our current favorite is about half white and half white whole wheat (yes, there is such a thing) but that takes longer. You can use the timer on the machine and have bread ready in the morning.

Our Panasonic SD-YD250 is about 6 years old and replaced a similar model which wore out after many years and hundreds of loaves. You can get fancy with it but we seldom do. I make pizza dough with it. If you get one, you will wonder why you ever missed commercial bread.

BTW, you can freeze it but don't keep it in the refrigerator. It gets stale in the refrigerator, not in the freezer.

I used to bake a lot of bread in a bread machine. It is great for mixing and keeps the perfect temperature for rising. I never cared for the crust when it was baked in the machine. My solution was to use the machine in the dough cycle and put it in a bread pan for one extra rise, then cook it in the oven. This also gives you the opportunity to make bread rolls, hamburger buns, pretzels, or any other shape.

Steve

[Garth Almgren]

Breads often depend on the dominate local bakeries. Currently I am very happy with the Franz Bakery in Portland, Oregon. One of their breads in particular, Columbia River - Sweet Dark, is great for all my needs. It is an almost black whole wheat loaf with no HFCS. It is as good for toast as it is for a PB&J, a BLT or a grilled cheese.
My wife and I love Franz's Cannon Beach Milk & Honey, which is likely made in one of their two Seattle bakeries. It's a white bread, but oh so yummy! We stock up whenever it is on sale at our local Safeway and freeze the ones we're not eating right away..

[Alan Rutherford]

... My solution was to use the machine in the dough cycle and put it in a bread pan for one extra rise, then cook it in the oven....

We're OK with the crust but the shape took some getting used to. Our machine makes loaves that are taller than they are long. We slice them in half horizontally to make 2 small loaves. The top half looks normal but has no crust on the bottom. The bottom half looks less traditional but still makes good slices. Using bread pans would eliminate the need for that at the cost of convenience.

[Chuck Pickering]

I too, used to use the bread machine on dough cycle and bake the loaf/loves on a sheet or in bread pans. Today I made a fair basic Italian loaf with just the stand mixer and baked it on a sheet. Tried letting the dough rise and then kneading for a couple minutes in the mixer, second rise on the sheet, then baking. Still not what I'm looking for, crust wise, but very good. Used butter wash for browning and crisping the crust.

Chuck

[Jim Becker]

We also us a bread machine...for the obvious...but it also makes excellent bready-pizza dough. :)

[Bruce Wrenn]

Bought a loaf of "Wonder" bread last week at Dollar Tree. Thomas Bakeries bought the right to Wonder bread, so now it's in our local Dollar Tree. Usually has a "best by date" that about a week out, same as local grocery stores, but a heck of a lot cheaper. I had forgotten how good Wonder Bread tastes, plus the texture is out of this world. Brings back a lot of childhood memories, as Wonder Bread was baked in local city. Last stop light out of town was in front of bakery. The aroma was such that you wanted to stop for light, even if it was green.

[Bill Neely]

I grew up before batter whipped and wonder type breads existed, the white bread was firm and had texture but it was a one day bread. They had discount shelves for day old bread. IMO wonder bread is only good for catfish bait, same category as Velveeta cheese.

[Ole Anderson]

My dad used to refer to grocery store white bread as "punk" bread. He always preferred bakery bread. I remember his fondness for "salt rising" bread, I liked it too. Once I matured, the only white bread I really loved was warm and out of the oven or bread machine. The best I ever had was when my grandfather's neighbor's wife pulled a fresh loaf out of her wood stove and slathered it with butter fresh out of the churn. It was while we visited them as my grandfather was helping cut up firewood with a true buzz saw, running off a belt from the tractor.

I just bought a loaf of sourdough from Publix in FL, it was OK, but no match for the fresh, crusty sourdough I get from Kroger bakery in Michigan. That being said, we do keep a loaf of Hillybilly Bread around for my wife's sandwiches and for french toast. Only slightly off-white.

[Matt Meiser]

Your market's in-store bakery can help with this... :D

Your local markets bakery is likely baking dough made in a factory, frozen, and thawed. Don't get me wrong, makes good bread but it's not really "fresh".

[Mike Henderson]

Bought a loaf of "Wonder" bread last week at Dollar Tree. Thomas Bakeries bought the right to Wonder bread, so now it's in our local Dollar Tree. Usually has a "best by date" that about a week out, same as local grocery stores, but a heck of a lot cheaper. I had forgotten how good Wonder Bread tastes, plus the texture is out of this world. Brings back a lot of childhood memories, as Wonder Bread was baked in local city. Last stop light out of town was in front of bakery. The aroma was such that you wanted to stop for light, even if it was green.
That brings back memories of New Orleans when I was young. I can remember the smell coming from the Merita bakery in the early morning, and the coffee roasters on Tchoupitoulas Street close to the river. If you were out about dawn on Tchoupitoulas, just off Canal, the wonderful smell of coffee was all around you. I wonder where coffee gets roasted these days.

Mike