When I was a little girl my mother made daily trips to our bakers for our daily loaf. Before high volume bread production, bread meant something that took time to make, it was a slow, crusty fermented product, extremely delicious and fresh, however, it would always be rock hard by the following day. Commercially made bread can stay 'fresh' for anything up to a couple of weeks, I know this because I have previously left a loaf in my cupboard, gone to Spain for a fortnight and come home to find the loaf unnaturally still springy.
For thousands of years, bread was made in the same way. Flour, water and salt combined with yeast as a raising agent. In 1961 a new method was developed, known as the Chorleywood process which reduced the time to make bread and the labour input.
This industrialised system meant bread could be mass produced from flour - to a sliced and packaged loaf in around 3 1/2 hours. Ingredients such as ascorbic acid, fat, emulsifiers, anti-fungal compound and 2-3 times the usual amount of yeast (compared to traditionally made bread) were added.
The extra yeast creates a large volume of gas and the process of mechanically mixing the ingredients has such a violent input of energy (thus releasing the gluten in the wheat very quickly) that the finished product is a spongy loaf. The true test is, if you push your fingers into the bread and it doesn't bounce back, you can be sure it's not traditionally made bread and is full of unnatural ingredients.
Soft, springy, mass produced bread which leaves indentations when pressed
And don't be fooled by the variations of wholemeal, granary, seeded etc
The Chorleywood process is now used to make 80% of the UK's bread and is a culinary and digestive disaster. We're abandoning bread due to it's cause of bloating and irritable bowel syndrome, not to mention many of us now deem we're gluten intolerant (although very few people have actually been diagnosed with coeliac disease.) Basically, industrial bakers and millers - who foisted the health related problems with bread on us - are using it to make money in a different sphere. The gluten free industry is worth £238 million in Britain, yet, real bread, made using the traditional proving method (which can take hours - or often overnight) is still far better for us than highly processed 'gluten free' bread.
Back in biblical times there was a saying: 'bread is life', and certainly when I was a child it was a staple and a good source of nutrition. Baking your own bread is really the best way to ensure you are eating the real thing, failing that it is worth trying to source a local artisan baker or visit a country market.
Homemade bread
Recipe
1 1/2kg wholemeal flour
Handful of self raising flour
Dessert spoon of salt
Dessert spoon of sugar
5 dessert spoons of vegetable oil
4 teaspoons easy blend yeast
Mix all dry ingredients, add 2 pints of tepid water
Work together until you have a dough mixture
On a floured surface, knead dough for 15 minutes
Split dough into 3 portions and place in greased loaf tins
Leave in a warm place to prove for at least 2 hours
Preheat oven 170c/gas mark 3
Place tins in oven and cook for 45 minutes -1 hour
Leave to cool before removing from tins
'How can a nation be great if its bread tastes like Kleenex.'
- Julia Child
Love Donna xxxxxx
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