Bread

One of my favourite jams. Recently got a taste for their yoghurts - rhubarb & s trawberry and fig.

Coming originally from Northern Ireland one of my favourite breads is a lightly malted loaf called Veda. Made by Sunblest or Urwins, it seems more or less unique to NI. Quite sweet (due to treacel/mollasses ingredient), it’s divine when toasted with butter. Goes well with a nice mature cheddar cheese too.

Remarkably my local home bakery (near York) has started baking and selling ‘treacle bread’ - an almost perfect copy of Veda bread. It’s becoming a frequent purchase now! :slight_smile:


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The Sunblest name seems familiar though I don’t think I’ve ever tried it.

It’s a bakery name, so produces other loaves too. Part of Allied group now I think.

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Here’s one I made earlier - hot from the Aga.

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Many weeks ago I needed a quick snack and got a couple of McDonald’s burgers via drive-through.

Only ate one and for some reason did not take the bag out of the car which had not been used for nearly 2 months since.

So when I took the car for a run to check the battery was ok, I decided to declutter a few things I’d left inside.

The burger and bun had no mold or signs that they were no more than cold and could have been purchased earlier that day. Frightening.

An audio book I listened to some time ago started me thinking about preservatives, along the lines of how on earth can crackers/biscuits have such a long unopened shelf-life?

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All to do with water activity (water available to microbes), which is different from water content Bread is quite high at Aw = 0.95. Biscuits are lower at around Aw=0.6 or lower which reduces/prevents microbial growth. Jams with their high sugar content have low water activity too - so they are preserved.

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Not preservatives! Simply if they are dry enough they will not support bacterial or mould growth. Even dry any fat present may oxidise and go rancid in time, but generally slow and some fats much less susceptible than others, and many crackers/biscuits have very low fat content. Packaging may exclude oxygen until opened, and keeping in the dark assists as light can assist the oxidation. In the right packaging they could last years without any detectable deterioration, yet have no synthetic additives.

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Interesting.

Perhaps many are in plastic with nitrogen or just a little air.

Often surprising the things which are seemingly good long after best before dates.

Biona is a brand thats often seen in the supermarkets - alas hiding in some random section.
The Pumpernickel is a good one. Especially with a bit of sour cream pickled herring and gherkin.
Or with something like this.

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Also sugar works as a preservative, which is one of the reasons why honey and jams don’t spoil easily.

edit: just saw that @onlyonearrow mentioned this too :wink:

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