Celebrating Homemade Bread and Independent Bakeries

A nice loaf of good bread should be the most simple thing in the world. But it’s not. Most supermarkets use ‘tanning salons’ to just heat and up and brown part-cooked loaves, then sell them as ‘freshly baked’.

Other bread loaves sold in shops often contain milk and palm oil, plus preservatives that ironically (especially when sold in plastic bags) make the bread go stale quickly. And of course most loaves are too big, leading to a massive food waste issue.

Easy no-knead loaf (The Simple Veganista) is a great beginner recipe ready in hours. Great for dipping in soup, sandwiches or even as pizza dough.

Before cooking, read up on food safety for people and pets (keep fresh dough away from children and pets). Bin allium scraps (onion, leeks, garlic, shallots, chives) and citrus/tomato/rhubarb scraps, as acids could harm compost creatures. It’s okay to put them in food waste bins (made into biogas).

Before recycling cans, rinse then remove lids (pop ring-pulls over holes). Then use your fingers/thumb to ‘pinch’ inner rims together, to avoid wildlife getting trapped. 

Use a real bakery to only buy what you need. Or choose rolls in stores, rather than big loaves. If you do buy more than you need, you can freeze bread, just pop slices in the toaster straight from the freezer.

Never give leftover stale bread to garden birds or wildfowls. As well as being a choking hazard (same with pizza crusts and crackers), it can harm due to mould, salt or butter from sandwiches (that smear on feathers, affecting waterproofing and insulation). Birds need their own food in safe garden havens. 

Choose artisan flour brands

Baking your own bread is pretty simple. You can just simple four-ingredient recipes (flour, yeast, salt, water) to make loaves with or without a bread machine. Once you’ve mastered the technique, you’ll likely never go back to store-bought loaves.

Doves Farm is an organic flour company whose flours are widely sold in health shops and supermarkets, and they also make good baking powder and fresh yeast. Look in your area, as many artisan flours are local, helping to keep windmills in use (rather than being turned into holiday homes).

Alongside usual wholegrain and white flours, you’ll find specialty flours:

• Spelt flour (lighter on digestion)
• Chickpea flour (good to make vegan omelettes!)
• Various seed flours (high in protein and calcium)
• Pasta and pizza flours
• Ancient flours (rye, Emmer, Einkorn)
• Buckwheat flour (good for allergies)
• Sacks of flour (for professional chefs & catering)
• Organic baking powders and quick yeasts

The recipe pages includes information on how to make:

• Wholemeal Spelt Air-Fryer Bread
• Heritage Seeded Sourdough Loaf
• Air-fryer Loaves (white or wholemeal)
• Simple Machine Loaves
• No Knead Overnight Bread
• Malthouse Bread Rolls
• Soda Bread
• Rye Bread & Scones
• 2-Hour Wholemeal Bread
• Breadsticks
• Chapati Flatbreads
• Focaccia & Ciabatta

Freshpaper (organic bread saver sheets)

FreshPaper Bread Saver Sheets (from the USA) are not sold here, but should be (Lakeland stores sell something similar). Inspired by the founder’s Indian grandmother’s method of using oils to preserve food (there’s also a version for the fruit bowl), they keep bread fresh for longer.

Just drop a sheet into a bowl or bin containing baked goods, and the organic spices keep them fresher for longer. Ideal for fresh-from-the-bakery or homemade bread, and also good for anything else. This brand has over 5000 good reviews!

One pack of 8 sheets should last around 3 months, and pays for itself in two weeks, due to saving money on bread that goes stale too soon.

Battle Green’s organic cotton bread bag

Battle Green organic cotton bread bag is the ideal way to keep your bread loaves fresh, so you can buy plastic-free loaves at local bakeries or supermarkets. It can easily handle a large loaf or several bread rolls, and is wrapped in a recycled card ‘belly band’.

Wash on a cool setting and allow to air-dry. Made from organic cotton, so it won’t release plastic microfibers during washing.

Real Bread Campaign’s Honest Crust Act

Real bakers get up at 3am and knead the dough, and you can buy a freshly-made loaf in the early hours that is far more nutritious. In France, bakers don’t go on holidays at the same time, ensuring everyone can visit a boulangerie on any given day, as freshly-baked bread is deemed an important part of life.

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This Honest Crust Act campaign has been submitted to DEFRA, to ask that a full revision of bread and flour regulations comes into place, so that people know what they are buying. This would mean that anything sold as ‘bread’, could not use processing aids or other additives.

All loaves would need to display a full list of ingredients, including at point-of-display (say for loose rolls in supermarkets). It also must legally say if the item was baked from scratch in the last 12 hours, or just ‘baked’ in store from delivered pre-made products.

There would also be a ban on ‘wholemeal’ products that contained refined ingredients, and stricter legislation on sourdough loaves. Keeping the real bread industry alive could support up to 75,000 meaningful and sustainable jobs (twice that of present ‘big baking industry’).

Recently, some big brands have had to amend labels, due to ‘greenwashing the public’:

• Kingsmill had to remove nutritional claims, after Real Bread Campaign made a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority. It was claiming that its 50/50 loaf (with white flour) was meeting UK nutritional guidelines (it was using US guidelines).
• Ocado had to rename its sourdough loaf as it was ‘sourfaux’, made with additional ingredients.
• Marks and Spencer has launched a range of five-ingredient items. But Real Bread Campaign found  the bread rolls had 11 ingredients! Their granary loaf also contains palm oil (from Indonesia).

Homemade vegan bread and butter pudding

Bread and butter pudding is good old-fashioned ‘stodgy food’, made with day-old leftover bread and vegan butter, cooked in a custard. Yum!

But of course, these days we have plant-based options that are kind to animals, avoid factory-farming and palm oil, and are cholesterol-free. Still retaining traditions, but with compassion!

This vegan bread and butter pudding (The Veg Space) combines dried fruits in a custard, and brown crunchy demerara sugar.

Keep this dessert away from pets, due to bread, dried fruits and citrus. 

This easy vegan bread butter pudding (Katy Beskow) is from her wonderful cookbook Five Ingredient Vegan. It uses ready-made custard to greatly simplfiy the recipe, and includes marmalade!