I love making our own bread - we rarely buy shop bought, but it tends to go off very quickly. Part of the appeal is that it doesn't have any "junk" in it - artificial preservatives - which I'm sure contributes to the lovely flavour. Is there anything natural I can add to it to stop it going mouldy so fast?
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My whole wheat bread takes 4x to go off than my white bread. Even a mixture of 50% whole wheat flour will make it last longer. But that will only help if the problem is the bread getting hard too soon. That can also be prevented by keeping it in a plastic bag. You'll get the mold before the bread goes stale. If you're keeping the bread in a plastic bag, try paper bags. To solve the mold problem, the traditional way is to add some acidity. For example, you can add a sourdough starter. If you don't like the taste of sourdough, a poolish starter should also help. The bacteria it grows will prevent the mold growing. I know it's not what you're asking, but freezing will also help. When you bake more bread than you eat, freeze it wrapped in a plastic bag and thaw it overnight and you will get a good, fresh bread. |
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Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is a natural preservative. A little also helps the yeast grow (you will find it in many commercial dough enhancers). When I make bread I use Fruit Fresh, a powdered vitamin C with some sugar used to preserve fruit in canning and freezing. I use about 1/4 teaspoon per loaf. I don't know if that is enough to provide additional preservative power, but it is worth a try as it has no downside. Of course you can just get some vitamin c tablets and crush them but it will take some experimentation to figure out how much to add. |
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One commercial bread company has switched preservatives... They use vinegar (I suspect ordinary white vinegar). Maybe you could give a little bit of vinegar a go and see how that works? You can still smell it if you sniff and sandwiches do have a faint vinegar flavour, but it seems to work well enough for the company and it apparently hasn't sabotaged the product line... Then again, it /is/ commercial bread... |
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Honey is considered a natural preservative. Try adding 2 Tbsp of honey, or replacing the sugar in your recipe with honey. Do a google search for 'honey natural preservative' and you'll find lots of references. |
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Rather than adding a preservative, slice whatever bread you can't eat within one or two days (or whatever period it is before your bread goes 'off') and freeze it wrapped in heavy-duty aluminum foil. Whenever you'd like some of that bread, either thaw it in advance or warm in a toaster or toaster oven before eating. |
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