Fresh commercial white bread

[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...

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