Cooking Tips Information

Baking Bread and Your Freezer


There's a lot of bread in our freezer. In our exuberance, we often bake more bread than we can eat in a day or two. What isn't given away goes in the freezer.

Sometimes, we bake bread just to store. It's wonderful to have homemade bread on hand for those periods when we're just too busy to bake. And it's always a good feeling to have bread on hand for an emergency.

There are three ways to use bread from your freezer. Most commonly, the freezer is raided for that special bread (like Canadian Cheese Bread) for a sandwich or for fresh homemade bread for breakfast toast. To accommodate those raids, we keep lots of sliced bread in the freezer. A slice or two of bread is snapped from the frozen loaf and dropped in the toaster while the remaining loaf goes back to the freezer. As long as you don't mind toasted bread for your sandwich, an array of breads are available for breakfast or sandwiches. This way, each kid gets to choose the bread that he or she wants.

Bread can be removed from the freezer and allowed to thaw on the counter. Use it within a day or so just like you would fresh bread.

Frozen bread can also be reheated and recharged in the oven. Defrost the bread completely on the counter then reheat it in the oven for ten minutes at the same temperature at which it was baked.

The secret for quality bread from your freezer is starting with the freshest loaves possible. If you freeze the bread as soon as it is completely cooled, it will taste as if it came from the oven when thawed.

To freeze bread-sliced or unsliced-place it in a plastic bag with the excess air pressed out. For longer storage, cover the plastic bag with aluminum foil. Since air will slowly migrate through the walls of a plastic bag, plastic alone will work for only a month or two (heavier, freezer-type bags will help). If frozen in foil or freezer wrap, bread can be stored for three or four months and still maintain top quality. Mark all bread going into your freezer with the date and the type of bread to be sure that you can tell the difference between Old Wisconsin Cheddar Bread and Sour Cream Onion Bread.

Place the new loaves behind the loaves already in the freezer to help rotate stocks.

By the way, never refrigerate bread. Bread will stale faster in the refrigerator than on the counter.

See a photo and the printable version for Baking Bread and your Freezer

For more articles like this visit The Baker's Library.

© 2004, The Prepared Pantry


MORE RESOURCES:

New York Times (blog)

Cooking Tips: Oats, Garlic and Tomatoes
New York Times (blog)
By THE NEW YORK TIMES Jim Wilson/The New York Times What's the best way to keep tomatoes tasty and fresh? Several readers had questions for the Consults ...

and more »


600 attend conference on brain injuries in Marlborough
MetroWest Daily News
Workshop topics included long-term planning for survivors and families, house searching and the cooking tips that Rico and about two dozen other ...



Billerica Townie News

Top Five Cooking Tips
Billerica Townie News
I used to hate cooking. I took after my mother who saw cooking as a chore. As a young adult, living on my own, I would eat cereal from a box with milk for ...



Medill Reports: Chicago

Rise in home cooking, once recession-driven, now the hip thing to do
Medill Reports: Chicago
At the heart of this trend: social networking and other online platforms, which have made trading recipes and cooking tips more fun, and food television ...



St. Louis Post-Dispatch (blog)

Top Chef On Tour!
PerezHilton.com (blog)
Visitors of “Top Chef: The Tour” will be able to to meet Top Chef talent, sample food tastings, receive cooking tips, hear Top Chef show “secrets,” and get ...
"TOP CHEF: THE TOUR" KICKS OFF APRIL 14TH SPONSORED BY DIAL NUTRISKINThe Futon Critic

all 12 news articles »


Blogging Mennonite grandmas feed a need — and fight world hunger
The Province (blog)
For two years they have contributed recipes — a new recipe is posted each day at 4 am — in addition to mouth-watering photos, cooking tips and inspirational ...

and more »


Let's get cookin' again
Review Times
Savory dishes and live cooking demonstrations — Fostorians will have another opportunity to learn cooking tips from Taste of Home ...



Grilled Vegetable Couscous with Shrimp (03.15.10)
Fox 13 Now - Salt Lake City
Cook couscous as directed on package, but add 2 cloves of garlic minced in water while cooking and a pinch of red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. ...



Examiner.com

'Losing it with Jillian' gets an NBC airdate
Examiner.com
... efforts by ridding the family's kitchen of all unhealthy foods and educating them on proper nutrition, healthy ingredients, cooking tips and recipes. ...

and more »


Woman opens Asian grocery store in Anderson
Anderson Independent Mail
The other woman looks on, smiling and listening to her friend and teacher's cooking tips. “Do not overcook your vegetables or you'll lose your vitamins,” ...


Google News

Index | Site map
© 2009 VirBooks  Home
PLAE  | Solar System