Where can I get decent (real) bread?

Our local Asda's loaves had a period of containing a central portion of uncooked dough, which is why I changed to Sainsbury or Waitrose. However, today I decided to try them again. Label definitely still shows no added gluten. Good.
I ended up buying a really crispy crusted large white. I have yet to try it. I was actually after a small wholemeal but no small loaves available and the wholemeal large was soft crusted and squidgy feeling. Too much added fat perhaps?

Asdas own small wholemeal loaf is excellent and I am very fussy about bread . I dont know why but the small loaves always seem better to me ? Like the lovely old hovis loaves .Maybe to do with oven temperature?

Italian flours are often 00

Wow! Sainsbury's had some Ancient grains pavé today! A whisker away from being actually burnt, very deeply scored. Was considering the least scorched loaf, although not useful for sandwiches because of its shape, and checked the ingredients. It is sourdough.

Moved on to the flour, found 00, recommended to me as being of a lower gluten content. It was Dove's. Checked the incredients - added gluten! Unbelievable.

Ours is usually a sourdough.
I wonder if that's why it's not fussy?

We bring our dough into the sitting room in winter.
It's south facing so gets any sun available.
I just keep it till it's risen. It may take a few hours but does rise even on a cold day.

I'm a bit slap-happy with bread.
It will even rise overnight.
I think it works down to just a few degrees to be honest.

Aely you could put the hot water in a large bowl standing in the sink. It might cool faster than a whole sinkful, but you could always replace it with new and hotter water.

That is excellent thinking, Elegran. Mind you, my North facing kitchen is freezing, even with my upgraded double glazing, but maybe it would work. I'll have to check if the oven shelves will safely sit without dumping into the sink. Small oven, but small sink too.

Remember the old days when babies were bathed and washing was done in the kitchen sink? 2 plates plus a coffee mug sitting in the saucepan now.

I put a thermometer in mine, when I had a tank of hot water, and the tank insulation is too efficient. 17C. I need 20C to 22C. When tanks leaked heat more, I used the airing cupboard for bread.

I raise my bread by filling the kitchen sink with very hot water and taking a shelf out of the oven to put over the sink. The bread in a bowl sits on the shelf, with a clean teatowel laid over it and the shelf to hold in the heat. If the room is very cold, a thicker terry towel goes over that to keep it all from cooling. After the dough has been knocked back and shaped and is in the loaf tin or tins, it stands on the shelf until it is risen enough to put into the pre-heated oven. (The teatowel, and possibly a terry towel, gets returned to cover the shelf, to prevent the water from cooling down too fast while the dough is being shaped.)

This also gives you a sinkful of hot water to wash the preparation bowls and utensils in, so don't let it out too soon.

Can you not raise the bread in your airing cupboard? That is what I always do.

Thanks again everybody. I had to Search OO flour! Less gluten sounds good. The daughter made loaf did come out of the machine immediately as she was running late. Arrived here still warm nearly an hour later so must have been hot. Temp. attainable in my livingroom in the Winter apparently not warm enough to raise dough, so bread making efforts delayed until warmer weather.

Aely She could minimise the damage by not taking the loaf out immediately it is baked, but leaving it in the pan (not still in the machine) for ten minutes or so (ignoring that delicious smell) The bread will not be so soft, so will not tear so easily, and will have cooled and shrunk back a bit from the paddle, which will be easier to take out without having to dig it out. The bread comes out of the pan more easily too.

Aely

I'll check that out, thanks. My daughter brought me a loaf she made in her super-duper Panasonic does everything bread machine yesterday when she made the 40 mile journey to see me. She can't figure out why, but it didn't rise properly. Tastes fine, but on the solid side. When I commented on the large hole and larger gash in the bottom she said it was made by the paddle and can't be avoided. It ruined almost half the small loaf. It nearly went right through. Is this common with bread makers?

Aely The paddle fits onto a spindle that sticks up in the middle of the bread pan, and the lower end of the spindle (under the outside of the pan) connects to the motor that makes the paddle rotate.

The ingredients are all put into the bread pan and then never touched while the bread is mixed, rises and is baked, so there is no chance of anyone taking the paddle out until the loaf is ready and removed. If you tried to take it out after the bread rises but before it bakes, you would have to lift out a very soft and squidgy lump of dough that would lose all its rising and stick to your fingers. It would bake in that hopeless shape after you put it back - if you could persuade it all back into the pan.

I can't think of any other way to mix and knead the ingredients into bread than by having the paddle work like this. It is not beautiful, but the home-made bread is lovely. I think we just have to put up with the paddle hole in the middle. All breadmakers have it. At least it is mostly hidden underneath.

The whole process of manufacturing bread changed in the 1960s with the development of the 'Chorley Woodprocess'.

This drastically reduces the time needed to produce a loaf of bread by the addition of a variety of substances not previously used in baking

Read all about it www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13670278

I loved bread as a child, but without knowing anything about the Chorley Wood process, I stopped eating bread at much the same time as it became the standard loaf you bought because I no longer enjoyed eating it. My love of bread came back about 30 years ago when I moved to live in a village with a good artisan bakery. Yes, the bread is more expensive, but quality over quantity any day.

Round loaves heat Le Creuset soup pot to 220, place dough on paper, once dough is risen place (paper still under) inside the hot pot, and bake.

I understand that palm oil is used in the mass production of bread because it is a solid fat. The alternative would be to use butter (too expensive) or lard ( unacceptable to some)

Referring back to Midgey's post, palm oil is ubiquitous these days. I try to avoid it where possible but it seems to be in everything. I prefer butter and Orangutans, I had words with Sainsbury's a while back about their Butter Puff cracker biscuits. No butter, just Palm oil. When I asked how they got away with it I was told it was a registered name for the product which used to be made with butter. they had kept the name so "people woud know it was the same product". It isn't.

A lot of bread now has added Palm oil. I don't know why. Perhaps to increase the disgusting (to me) squidginess and make it seem fresh even when the mould is on the brink of appearing?

A slight digression - my mother never served bread less than 2 days old (until we went on a protest no bread strike). She said that if she gave us fresh bread we would eat more because stale bread was less nice. Her way of keeping the food bill down.

Real bread didn't go mouldy. It went hard. Slightly stale bread makes better toast. It also makes an excellent bread pudding. A white sliced doesn't crumb and can only be used for bread and butter pudding. O.K., but not nearly as good.

NotSpaghetti

Ascorbic acid and use in commercial breadmaking:

Strengthened gluten. Greater loaf volume. Finer crumb (i.e. smaller, more even cells/bubbles).

You may like to see this about the campaign for real bread:
www.sustainweb.org/realbread/real_bread_loaf_mark/

Thank you for this link. I have found it really useful in locating real bread makers in the area we plan to move to.

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There was a similar thread on Mumsnet a while ago and someone posted this recipe -

Having read these posts I checked the Warburton’s Old English(?) bread I thought I liked….it incorporates palm oil! Why!

Going back to an earlier post, someone recommended the Sainsburys Ancient Grains Pave. I was in our local S's a couple of late mornings ago and they do stock it. There was an small section of empty shelf with that name. I asked about it and was told "You'ld have to be up very early to get it". Not surprising as the section of shelf would accomodate about 6 loaves. Oh, and the price was twice that which was stated on the website. And no, it wasn't a "convenience" branch, it was a medium sized supermarket.

I'll check that out, thanks. My daughter brought me a loaf she made in her super-duper Panasonic does everything bread machine yesterday when she made the 40 mile journey to see me. She can't figure out why, but it didn't rise properly. Tastes fine, but on the solid side. When I commented on the large hole and larger gash in the bottom she said it was made by the paddle and can't be avoided. It ruined almost half the small loaf. It nearly went right through. Is this common with bread makers?

Smintie

I have terrible shoulder problems too but I make this loaf a lot. It’s literally 3 x 10 seconds of kneading, basically pushing it around with your hands. It reminds me of the bread mum got from the bakery and our treat was the corner cut off and buttered. So delicious. Here it is www.nigella.com/recipes/old-fashioned-sandwich-loaf

Same. I stir with a spoon and push it over with my hands, if the stand mixer bowl is in the dishwasher. Works a treat!

Aely

I think I have now checked all the posts I missed before and I have pulled up the links and bookmarked them. The Hambledon Bakery looks lovely. Wish we had something like it here. I am in the N.E. Hants corner, an area almost surrounded by Surrey. We have excellent rail links and a motorway cuts the town in half, but buses are poor and I don't drive any more so I can only shop locally for daily food needs.

I have just checked the Gluten Intolerance/Coeliac figures for the UK. It is estimated the level is now around 1% of the population and that it takes on average 13 years to be officially diagnosed - by which time of course, your gut is wrecked. I remember when it was so rare that sufferers could only get gluten free bread on prescription from the Chemist. I think the problem is being made worse by the practice of adding extra gluten, to be able to puff up the bread more. Are they determined to kill off their customers?

Your intestines can recover and the villi grow back if you stick to a gluten free diet. It may take months but it will heal.

One problem is that gluten is in many foods so labels need to be checked very carefully.