Homemade vs. Storebought

by Marla Weitzman (Owner, Breads by Marla)

Have you ever wondered what the differences are between homemade and storebought baked goods? The best way to understand the difference is to try some homemade ones! I'm sure you know what storebought baked goods taste like. They taste like nothing. They taste like air. Once you have tried the homemade ones, going back to storebought is difficult. At Breads by Marla, we can easily spoil you.

Take sandwich bread, for example. The storebought version is full of preservatives and salt. That means it has a longer shelf life. But what is it that will keep longer--a tasteless, although uniformly sliced loaf. The sandwich bread we make at Breads by Marla has a total of seven ingredients--and one of them is water! We create magic with milk, yeast, flour, olive oil, sugar, brown sugar, and salt. This is the list of ingredients for Wonder Bread:

Unbleached Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, Sugar, Yeast, Contains 2% or Less of Each of the Following: Calcium Carbonate, Wheat Gluten, Soybean Oil, Salt, Dough Conditioners (Contains One or More of the Following: Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Calcium Stearoyl Lactylate, Monoglycerides, Mono- and Diglycerides, Distilled Monoglycerides, Calcium Peroxide, Calcium Iodate, DATEM, Ethoxylated Mono- and Diglycerides, Enzymes, Ascorbic Acid), Vinegar, Monocalcium Phosphate, Citric Acid, Cholecalciferol (Vitamin D3), Soy Lecithin, Calcium Propionate (to Retard Spoilage).

It takes EIGHT LINES of text to list them.

And then there's the taste. Our bread is soft and chewy. It has flavor. It is slightly sweet, but mostly tastes like what you remember your grandma made--if she made bread. It makes the whole bakery smell delicious! If you are walking through Appalachia and pass by our shop, you can probably smell it from the sidewalk. It smells that good.

We don't make sandwich bread all the time, but we can always make it, with just a day's notice.

Sandwich bread, available at our shop!