La Brea bread

[jackal10]

The local Tesco Extra is stocking La Brea bread.

I bought a "Country white Sourdough Oval".

Not bad at all. Good grigne, good crust,nice open crumb texture. Bread actually tastes of something with a mild sourdough tang.

The crust has the little bubbles that comes from being a retarded dough.

One of the bakers told me that they get the dough and then bake it off in store.

The packet has a web site: http://www.labreabakery.com/

and an address in Uxbridge and in Dublin.

Here the plot thickens, since the web site has a refereence to http://www.iaws.ie/default.asp also based in Dublin

"IAWS GROUP plc is a major food and agri-business group with operations in Ireland, Great Britain, continental Europe, Canada and the United States." and it turns out that LaBrea is a group company, along with Delice de France, Cuisine de France and other brands.

Under La Brea it says " The breads are baked 80% then flash frozen and shipped to retailers and restaurants... where the baking process is finished off."

Looking at the table of ingredients there are a few surprises.

Flour (contains wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, Reduced Iron,Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavine,Folic Acid), Water, Sourdough (6.84%), Salt, Wheat Germ, Semolina.

The malted barley is a souce of an enzyme to help convert starch to sugars. Perfectly respectable.

Wheat Germ is I guess added for flavour, and also enzmes. The sourdough (same sub-list of ingredients) looks like an old dough addition, rather than a seperate ferment, but I'm guessing. Semolina is widely used to stop the dough sticking. Nothing wrong there, and nice of them to declare it, since its in such a small amount.

The thing that has me puzzled are the vitamins etc. Looks like they are added to the flour as nutrition supplements. Is this a US requirement? I don't think its needed for the bread. Nothing in the marketing says "Multivitamins added" or the like. Indeed the front of the package claims "No artificial additives".

Edited October 8, 2005 by jackal10 (log)

[MobyP]

Nancy Silverton sold La Brea Bakery - which used to supply the whole Los Angeles area, to an Irish company or consortium for 10 million smackers.

That must make her the richest baker in the history of mankind (excepting the guy who produces the baps for McDonalds...). I imagine she gave them the starters, the recipes, and then laughed all the way to the bahamas in her bikini. BTW, the Los Angeles stuff was, in my opinion, much better than the LBB stuff I've found here. More rustic, with a fantastic flavour. This stuff fells a little homogenised, by comparison.

Jack - do you have her book? I think you (of all people) would consider it a pretty good piece of work. Very thorough, certainly.

Edited October 8, 2005 by MobyP (log)

[BarbaraY]

I find this rather amusing as I live in California but La Brea bread isn't sold here.

I'm not sure if it's a requirement to "enrich" bread but I suspect it is since it is in all the breads on the shelves here.

[BarbaraY]

Since we were posting at the same time, I didn't realize she had sold the bakery. I do have the book but have never been able to get a decent starter with her grape method although I tried twice.

[Carolyn Tillie]

I find this rather amusing as I live in California but La Brea bread isn't sold here.

I'm not sure if it's a requirement to "enrich" bread but I suspect it is since it is in all the breads on the shelves here.

←

Where in California do you live? I lived in LA for 15 years and could buy it in local Trader Joes. Now I am here in Northern California and most Whole Foods and Trader Joes carry it...

[jackal10]

I do have the book but I don't like it.

Many of her recipes don't work for me, and some (like the starter) are just wrong.

[kitwilliams]

In flours where the bran and germ have been removed, they add some of the nutrients found in the bran and germ back into the flour after refining. I think it's as simple as that...someone correct me if I'm mistaken. Is that not part of the milling/refining process in the UK?

[Carolyn Tillie]

I do have the book but I don't like it.

Many of her recipes don't work for me, and some (like the starter) are just wrong.

←

I couldn't agree more. I tried a number of times and never could get her grape starter to work..

[rjwong]

I find this rather amusing as I live in California but La Brea bread isn't sold here.

I'm not sure if it's a requirement to "enrich" bread but I suspect it is since it is in all the breads on the shelves here.

←

Where in California do you live? I lived in LA for 15 years and could buy it in local Trader Joes. Now I am here in Northern California and most Whole Foods and Trader Joes carry it...

←

Also at Costco, at least in Southern California ...

After work, I usually get a package of La Bread Bakery baguettes, still warm. Just add some butter ...

[Priscilla]

The vitamins listed are just those that are added to what is called "enriched" flour here in the U.S. (Years ago I would buy "unenriched" organic flour from Kansas Mennonites for breadmaking, in case the added chemicals were affecting outcome. Now I just stick with King Arthur Flour, which is enriched.) Vitamin enrichment is an FDA requirement, I believe.

I like LBB bread. It is not the same every time, which to me is a sign that it is actual living, breathing bread. But the depth of flavor is definitely there, and it is dependably good if not 100% consistent.

In CA, as RJ Wong cited, Costco is a good source, and Trader Joe's's got many more varieties, and some supermarkets, too.

[jackal10]

I take it back.

Its the guvermint wot done it:

The Bread and Flour Regulations 1998

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1998/19980141.htm

spedifies minimum levels for calcium, iron, Thiamine, nicotinic acid.

I guess the niacin, riboflavin and Folic acid (important in pregnancy) are specified somewhere else. May be just what is in the commercial flour they are using - most labels don't bother to mention it.

[Juanito]

It is available all over California.

The bread is sold par baked, and frozen. It simply needs a ten minute "finishing" in the oven, and, viola, freshly baked bread.

I sell tons of the stuff. I really like their demi baguette for sandwiches. And they have something they call a rustique roll, that also makes a good sandwich.

Any foodservice distributor worth its salt is carrying this product now.

[Behemoth]

It's also available at Jewel & Schnuks in the midwest. I buy it when I can't get to my favorite bakery in Urbana or have time to make my own. It's pretty good, especially considering what normally passes for bread in American supermarkets.

[jbonne]

glad Juanito pointed out the parbaking part.

i'd be curious whether the various Tescos are parbaking at each location. i'd assume so, but well ... never assume, &c.

[jackal10]

I think they are. The bread I bought was still warm.

[Richard Kilgore]

I found a new display in my local Kroger store here in Texas. I tried a mini loaf which required finishing in the oven for 10 minutes, then cooling for 45. This was much better than the quality of the Kroger chain's "Artisan" breads, which are tasteless, and about the same quality as the Corner Bakery restaurant chain (their bread is parbaked and I believe was developed by Nancy Silverton), but not as good as the top couple of local bakeries, especially Empire Bakery in Dallas.

[fifi]

Thank you for that tip on Kroger's. I have ranted enough about the lack of a good bakery in my part of town. (My part of town means that I don't have to travel 30 miles to get stuff.) I don't eat much bread so that means that what I do eat needs to be good. I will be checking out my local Kroger and nag the managers so that we get more variety. If jackal10 says it is pretty good, that is enough endorsement for me.

[goldie]

We are getting it in our Stop and Shops here in Massachusetts. Interestingly, I've not seen it in my Whole Foods. I generally don't buy the supermarket bakery bread, but because I had heard of LaBrea I gave it a try. After heating in the oven it had a nice crust and a pleasant sourdough taste. The next day, though, after proper storage the crust go very chewy and the sour taste was off. Weird. I wonder if they parbake and then finish in the store and then I heated it at home and stored it that the fourth heating caused something chemical to happen that messed up the flavor.

[Chris Amirault]

I gotta say, La Brea isn't so bad, but there are at least two local artisanal bakers in the Providence area (Seven Stars and Olga's) that are a jillion times better and that supply some local stores.

Surely there are bakers in your communities whose wares are worth supporting more than those of the corporation to whom Silverton sold out. My two cents.

[Alex]

Like Chris, I try to buy local, but there are only two bakeries in the Grand Rapids metro area that produce artisinal bread, and they're located less than a mile from each other. If I can't make it to either one, La Brea -- sold through D & W, a local supermarket chain -- is a reasonable substitute.

[fifi]

. . . . .

Surely there are bakers in your communities whose wares are worth supporting more than those of the corporation to whom Silverton sold out. My two cents.

←

Well, there's the rub. I don't have any bakers in striking distance that can provide me with good bread. Yes, I have looked. I have two options . . . Go with what I can get at the local grocery (La Brea would be a possible improvement) or make it myself (not likely).

[jackal10]

This week I bought a La Brea Sourdough baguette.

Extremely dissapointing.

Good grigne, nice crust, but a very dense crumb, with the only large holes coming from poor moulding. Looked underproved to me. Quite salty, with a reasonable sour tang in the after taste, but not like a San Francisco sordough at all.