Good bread in the USA

jjbrien

Ok i have been in the states now for a year in NJ and for the life of me I cant find any decent bread. The american bread always tastes so sweet. Other than travelling into NYC to get Brennans or Pat the baker in the irish stores anyone got any suggestions?

silja

Bread maker.
I've been here for 7 years now, haven't found good "Irish type" bread yet.

ProudDUB

Decent Irish style sliced pan is impossible to find in your bog standard American supermarket. Lord knows I spent a lot of my 17 years there trying. The Yanks put sugar in their sliced pan & there is no way around that.

If you want decent, non sugary bread, your best bet is to investigate specialty bakers in your area & see what else you can find. It'll never be what you were used to here, but there are some really good artisian French and Italian rustic style breads widely available over there, that you won't often get here, so it'll be a bit of a trade off.

biddywiddy

We get Rustic Italian bread in Aldi here and keep it in the freezer. Not proper sliced pan, but the low sugar content means it's grand for toast.

él statutorio

I get a potato bread sliced pan at Costco. It's grand for toast.

Apart from that I get whatever is freshly baked at Trader Joe's, usually a baguette or similar.

Haven't found anything like normal bread.

TeaBagMania

The milk and eggs aren’t anything to write home about either. Quality is much better in Ireland.

él statutorio

TeaBagMania wrote: »

The milk and eggs aren’t anything to write home about either. Quality is much better in Ireland.

Eggs are eggs. I saw something recently where they proved that there was no nutritional difference between free range and battery eggs. The only question was the moral one, did you approve of battery farms, but I digress.

Yeah the milk is rough. But, I've found you can get excellent organic milk, comes in a glass bottle with cream on top. It's fantastic, but expensive. (can't remember what brand)

dave2pvd

Publix White Mountain bread is pretty good.

Disagree re free range vs caged. Depends on where you buy them/what brand though. Same goes for organic eggs. Although, you're paying 4X. Still cheap overall.

Ponster

Do what silja says.

Breadmaker. A Panasonic. Bung in the ingredients and wake up to perfect bread!

I lived in France for 15 years and bought fresh bread daily. When I moved to the US I had no choice but to make it myself.

InTheTrees

él statutorio wrote: »

I saw something recently where they proved that there was no nutritional difference between free range and battery eggs. The only question was the moral one, did you approve of battery farms, but I digress.

Well a lot depends on what they're being fed.

él statutorio

InTheTrees wrote: »

Well a lot depends on what they're being fed.

It was a foodie type show on BBC, (granted it was a UK battery farm) but the lab results showed that nutrition wise the organic free range wasn't any better than the battery egg.

spideog7

Ah now Brennan's and Pat the Baker sliced pan is hardly 'good bread', although it might be what you're used to and like. There's loads of great bread here but you won't find it in the bread aisle at Walmart. Plenty of bakeries with huge selections of great bread, get a plain Italian or French loaf if you want plain white bread.

Milk and eggs are perfectly comparable here, I only buy the organic milk in cartons, so it's expensive but it's good. I usually buy brown eggs because I'm old fashioned that way but the white eggs are exactly the same too.

Ponster

spideog7 wrote: »

There's loads of great bread here but you won't find it in the bread aisle at Walmart.

That's true. If the OP can't find a market of the Union Square-type then go visit a Wholefoods and try out something from there.

jjbrien

Ponster wrote: »

That's true. If the OP can't find a market of the Union Square-type then go visit a Wholefoods and try out something from there.

We do have a wholefoods nearby will have to check it out. Anyone good a good recipe for irish white bread? Since i came here i find myself not eating bread at all due to the sugary taste. Got a brennans loaf last week in queens it went mouldy after 3 days and I couldnt freeze it as they had frozen it in the store.

él statutorio

jjbrien wrote: »

We do have a wholefoods nearby will have to check it out. Anyone good a good recipe for irish white bread? Since i came here i find myself not eating bread at all due to the sugary taste. Got a brennans loaf last week in queens it went mouldy after 3 days and I couldnt freeze it as they had frozen it in the store.

You can refreeze bread. No idea how it'd taste but it won't do you any harm.
*edit* Apparently it's just a little tough, but probably grand for toast.

ProudDUB

Yeah, it's fine for toast, but not for sambos. It goes quite dry once its defrosted. It also doesn't keep for all that long once you've defrosted it. So if you are going to freeze a loaf of Brennans, freeze it in the batches that you'll use within 24 hrs. Don't bung the whole loaf into the freezer, unless you plan on eating the whole thing that day.

kupus

try a bosnian shop. THey def make their own, cos they really hate the american stuff.

Uno my Uno.

Go to whole foods or a good bakery and try to find a "Viennese loaf" it's probably the closest yo'all find. A polish store might be a good bet. Can't believe you went all the way to queens for a loaf of bread!

él statutorio

I've been told (have yet to try it) that Panera does white bread similar to home. A friend of mine buys it for sambos for the kids.

jjbrien

Uno my Uno. wrote: »

Go to whole foods or a good bakery and try to find a "Viennese loaf" it's probably the closest yo'all find. A polish store might be a good bet. Can't believe you went all the way to queens for a loaf of bread!

I was in the area so took a detour to the Butcher Block got a lot of goodies there from back home

Ill give whole foods a go. Theres one 3 miles from our house

Uno my Uno.

jjbrien wrote: »

I was in the area so took a detour to the Butcher Block got a lot of goodies there from back home

Ill give whole foods a go. Theres one 3 miles from our house

Whole Foods have a reputation for being overly expensive and overly fancy but they are actually very reasonable for most things and have a great range of staples.