The aroma of freshly homemade bread none can beat it as it is one of the best smells. It fills the room whenever it’s baked. You wouldn’t leave the kitchen.
Just imagine whenever you enter the place how the lovely aroma of the freshly made bread welcomes you into the house. Sometimes, I just wonder it might be that’s why people would spend more time at the bakery section in the supermarket because of the aroma of the freshly made bread.
One of my favourite fresh bread is the country sourdough brand. I think I am not the only one who loves this bread it seems it’s a very popular brand.
Prior to the lockdown it was easy to get one, I could just jump on a bus or train going to my favourite supermarket to get one.
Health Option Getting to the Supermarket for the bread
Everyone knows, walking is part of exercise, we have been advised to do especially during this lock-down and we were allowed to go for walks once a day. As walking was permitted, one day I wanted to eat my favourite country sourdough bread. However, it’s lock-down, how will I get to the shop. I can’t just jump on public transport to the supermarket.
Though, I couldn’t use the public transport I had the choice of a healthier option getting to the supermarket to obtain my country sourdough bread. I said to my partner it’s easy, let’s walk to the shop. It’s a long walk it can take up to 1.5 – 2 hours depending on how fast one can walk. But it’s an enjoyable one. So we walked to that particular superstore in Romford area.
Getting the Bread in the Supermarket
After walking for more than 50 minutes, we reached our destination. I went straight to the bakery section. Unfortunately, the country sourdough was not on display. I asked one of the shop assistants if the bread was available. I was reassured it was available. Then to my surprise, I saw the shop assistant who was cleaning the floor with a floor mop, taking one bread from the rack and holding the bread with her bare hands, putting into a paper bag.
Why I was surprised, because she didn’t wash her hands before handling the bread. I saw her mopping the floor, I would expect her to wash her hands or if she decided to use the sanitizer as she claimed, then she would have used gloves instead of touching the bread with dirt hands. My understanding is that when you have been cleaning the floor especially using a mob, sanitizer alone is not enough, you need to properly wash your hands, before handling food. Anyway, who am I?
When I saw what she was doing, I couldn’t help it, I politely, asked why are you are touching the bread before you washed your hands as I saw you cleaning the floor?
She seemed to be surprised and defensive, why did I asked her such a question implying that she didn’t wash her hands. She looked at me and said didn’t you see me using the spray sanitizer? Seeing how defensive she was, I thought there is not point reasoning with her and I didn’t want to cause any trouble. I apologised and said please forgive me it’s your human right not to wash hands.
That experience really put me off my favourite country sourdough from my favourite supermarket. I kept on asking myself, why did the shop assistant treat me like that, is it because of my colour? Clearly, she wouldn’t do that or answer like that if it were someone else. We are in the middle of this pandemic and some people don’t care or worse enough treat other people like nothing to them. I thought, should I raise the issue with the store supervisor, but I decided not to make a big issue because of one person with that narrow mind.
When I reached home, I wiped the whole bread with a kitchen tissue soaked into hot water. Then I put into the oven for another 20 minutes to dry it. From that experience, I decided, not to buy that bread anymore, instead I will make my own healthier type.
Let the Bread Making Machine Do the Job for You
Why not let the bread making machine for the job for you instead? I went straight to my bread maker Kenwood and let it do my hard job for me. Just put your preferred ingredients into the machine, programme it and leave it to do the tough job for you. The bread maker has 15 programmes and can keep the bread warm for more than 60 minutes. Unfortunately, this popular bread maker currently is out of stock at Amazon. However, there other brands such as Morphy Richards.
However, I don’t think the aroma of freshly homemade baked bread shouldn’t be the only reason to make you fall for the bread. There are several reasons preferring the freshly homemade bread rather than the supermarket brand.
A freshly homemade bread has added advantage it’s you who decides the type of ingredients whether basic or exotic for example you can mix two or three types of flour, use coconut milk etc. to make your baked bread more palatable. Nowadays, there are a variety of health flour depending on your pocket. My favourite brands are organic dove bread flour – whole wheat, white and rye and if you would like to spend a bit you can settle for organic rye and spelt.
Sometimes you wouldn’t need to go to the supermarket as you can bake the dough made from your own ingredients available in your kitchen. Remember, nobody chooses the ingredients for you, it’s your call!
Another advantage of the freshly homemade bread, you’re the one in control that is you can limit the amount of salt and other preservatives you put into your bread making it more nutritious. It’s a well-known fact that, cutting on the amount of salt intake is another way of controlling your diet as such leading to a health life style. However, you cannot control the amount of salt or other preservatives which are in your supermarket bread.
A standard supermarket bread can contain up to 1.3g salt per 100g equivalent to 2 to 3 slices depending on the size medium or think. Just ask yourself, how many slices do you consume per day? This amount of salt in the bread alone is higher than the daily recommended intake of 6g maximum.
Next time you purchase a loaf of bread from the store, just take a few seconds to check the type of ingredients in your bread. You will be surprised, I am not sure you will know/understand all those chemical-laden substances listed. I tried doing the same, I couldn’t make any sense of some words/terms.
This shouldn’t be part of your diet, you have the power to control what you and your family can consume. Make your own freshly home-made bread and reduce the amount of chemical substances you take.
Remember, when stores label fresh, it’s not that fresh the dough has been frozen sometimes for years. But when you fresh from your own kitchen, you are 100% it’s freshly made, and you can eat a warm bread.
How to making the freshly homemade bread
Making a freshly homemade bread shouldn’t be a problem, it should be very simple and easy. You don’t need to do the hard job of kneading or baking. Depending on your budget you can get any bread making machine. However, my another favourite one is Morphy Richards Fast-bake Home-bake Bread-maker, is not only affordable £79.41, but it is an easy to use too. This bread making machine can do the hard job for you and can make a bread in less than an hour. Just measure your preferred healthier ingredients and put them into your bread maker, leave the hard task to it.
Morphy Richards Fastbake Breadmaker 3 Loaf Sizes, Gluten Free, Cool Touch, 600 W
Some of the functions
- 12 programs from basic Ecru (Light beige) to cakes, jam and dough.
- 3 Loaf sizes – bakes 1 lb, 1.5 lb, 2 lb loaves and 3 crust settings
- Instruction manual contains gluten free recipes
- Fastbake – bake a loaf in under 50 minutes
- 13 hour delay timer for over night baking