Their early appearance is certainly handy for us here at ����Vlog – it gives our expert taste testers plenty of time to gather and compare all the options on the market, so you can make the smartest, most delicious choice for your Easter treats. 

We tasted 15 hot cross buns – ‘traditional’ fruit and chocolate varieties, including gluten-free options – from national supermarkets Coles, Woolworths, IGA and Aldi and major bakery chain Bakers Delight, to see which buns are best.

On this page:

• Best traditional fruit hot cross buns
• Best chocolate hot cross buns
• Best gluten-free hot cross buns
• How to choose the best hot cross buns
• How we test

Best traditional fruit hot cross buns

When it comes to hot cross bun varieties, the options extend from Iced VoVo to Pizza Shapes flavours, and seemingly everything in between.

Last year we saw Wagon Wheel and Fairy Bread flavoured buns on the shelves and for this year’s annual not cross bun taste test our judging panel were exposed to Doritos, Mint Slice and Cinnabon flavoured buns among others. 

But despite the availability of these gimmicky options, you can’t go past a traditional fruit hot cross bun. It’s a crowd favourite.

So for those who’d prefer not to mess with a classic, which traditional buns are best?

Our panel of professionals taste-tested 15 hot cross bun products all up, toasted and untoasted, including six traditional fruit varieties (it’s a tough gig but somebody’s gotta do it).

For the second year running, Coles holds the top spot.

You can compare all products in our full hot cross buns review.

Coles Finest Luxurious Fruit Hot Cross Buns

• ����Vlog Expert Rating: 85%
• Toasted score: 83%
• Fresh (untoasted) score: 87%
• Price: $1.38 per bun ($5.50 per 4-pack)
• Experts say: “Fruit is evenly distributed and mixed peel is evident. Good to see the fruit variety.” “Appearance is typical of a hot cross bun. When cut there’s a good amount of fruit including peel. The texture is firm yet it has good eating quality.” “Lots of fruit and glaze which is nice to see. Lots of spice you can taste.” “This is a great hot cross bun. Would get this for my home.”

Best chocolate hot cross buns

Why wait for the Easter bunny to bring eggs when you can eat your chocolate in bun form? 

We taste-tested four chocolate hot cross buns from Aldi, Bakers Delight, Coles and Woolworths. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get our hands on IGA’s Community Co Chocolate Easter Buns in time for our test.

There was a clear favourite among our experts, scoring over 90% in our taste test – one of the highest scores we’ve ever given to a hot cross bun.

Woolworths took out top honours in the chocolate category, knocking off last year’s favourite from Coles, which had to settle for second place this year.

Woolworths Bakery Chocolate Hot Cross Buns Made With Cadbury Milk Chocolate Chips

• ����Vlog Expert Rating: 95%
• Toasted score: 97%
• Fresh (untoasted) score: 93%
• Price: 73 cents per bun ($4.40 per 6-pack)
• Experts say: “Great chocolate aroma with good glaze. It presents well and looks like the real deal.” “When toasted there’s a good chocolate aroma with melted chocolate evident. Toasts well with good texture. A great product.” “Great colour, appearance was full and rich. When cut the aroma was intense of rich dark chocolate. The texture was light and the flavour was excellent. Wow, a great product.”

Woolworths chocolate buns have shown a significant improvement compared to last year’s result, when they scored just 68%. Last year our judges said that although the Woolworths bun looked the part with a good chocolate aroma, the flavour was lacking.

One said, “it looks like it’ll be super sweet and decadent but it isn’t”, while another said “visually it looks great, the expectation is big chocolate flavour but you don’t get it.”

This year, it truly impressed our judges, not only looking great but tasting great too.

Coles Bakery Choc Chip Hot Cross Buns

• ����Vlog Expert Rating: 75%
• Toasted score: 77%
• Fresh (untoasted) score: 73%
• Price: 73 cents per bun ($4.40 per 6-pack)
• Experts say: “The bun isn’t high so the texture feels dense and harder to cut and eat.” “Full of chocolate bits. It’s a little dry but there’s a nice even chocolate flavour.” “When toasted the chocolate was enhanced. A great product.” “Good chocolate flavour. Looks great when toasted.”

Best gluten-free hot cross buns

Many people need to avoid eating gluten, so we’ve included gluten-free traditional fruit and chocolate bun offerings from Aldi, Coles and Woolworths in our taste test. Coles didn’t release a gluten-free chocolate option this year.

We also decided to give the gluten-free buns their own category, so the scores aren’t directly comparable to their regular counterparts.

The best gluten-free traditional and chocolate buns came from Woolworths this year. The experts particularly praised their appearance, with these buns looking similar to regular buns, rather than the hockey puck shapes seen in the Coles and Aldi options.

Woolworths Free From Gluten Fruit Hot Cross Buns

• ����Vlog Expert Rating: 77%
• Toasted score: 77%
• Fresh (untoasted) score: 77%
• Price: $1.38 per bun ($5.50 per 4-pack)
• Experts say:  “Good texture that holds together well. A little crumbly on eating.” “Aroma is typical of a gluten free product but toasting gets rid of it.” “Good fruit quantity and evenly distributed.” “The presentation was good. This was a pleasing product.” “A very good gluten free product.”

Woolworths Free From Gluten Choc Hot Cross Buns

• ����Vlog Expert Rating: 70%
• Toasted score: 73%
• Fresh (untoasted) score: 67%
• Price: $1.38 per bun ($5.50 per 4-pack)
• Experts say: “Chocolate pieces are evenly distributed. There’s a chocolate aroma but it smells artificial.” “When cut, the aroma was quite good and not like a gluten free product.” “When toasted, the chocolate was enhanced and improved the product.” “Not very natural, chemical flavour.” “When toasted, there’s better aroma, the bun holds itself together better but it’s not very chocolatey and still lingering with a chemical flavour.”

How to choose the best hot cross buns

Choosing a hot cross bun really comes down to personal preferences. Do you like lots of dried fruits and a spicy aroma, or would you rather a gooey chocolatey bun? 

Do you like to eat it toasted and slathered in butter, or do you just devour it fresh out of the bag?

There are some things to consider before you just grab the first bag of hot cross buns you see on the shelf.

1. Fruit or chocolate content 

Hot cross buns are usually wrapped in clear packaging so you can at least see what you’re about to buy. Look for an even distribution of fruit or chocolate pieces – it’s a pretty good indicator of a good bun that has well-balanced flavour and texture. 

You can also check the fruit and chocolate content (as well as the type of dried fruit being used) by reading the ingredients list – generally the higher the number the better.

In this year’s test, fruit content in traditional buns ranged from 19 to 28%. Coles Finest Luxurious Fruit Hot Cross Buns had the highest fruit content, evident in the results and comments from our experts.

The chocolate content ranged from 15 to 25% in the chocolate buns. Interestingly, our top-rate Woolworths product didn’t have the highest chocolate content in the group, with 19%. Bakers Delight Handmade Choc Chip and Coles Bakery Choc Chip buns both had 25%.

2. Do they look good? 

The first thing you’ll notice is how the bun looks. And if you’re serving them up on a platter to guests you’ll want to make sure they look the part. 

Our experts assess the appearance of each bun and look for an even shape and size with decent rise (or dome) as well as nice browning on the outside with a well-covered glaze and evenly centred cross. 

3. How do they feel? 

The bun should be light and fluffy to touch with a soft centre when you crack it open. A hot cross bun that feels dense and tough might be stale. 

Keep in mind that toasting can improve the texture and flavour of a dense and stale bun. In some cases though – if the bun has artificial flavours, for example – toasting can enhance these poor characteristics. 

4. Do they have a nice aroma? 

If you can smell the blend of spices or get a nice hit of chocolate, then chances are you’ll be able to taste it when you take a bite. 

Our experts noticed that some hot cross buns had little to no spice aroma but instead had a yeasty smell, which then came through on tasting.

5. Check the use-by date

If you like to buy freshly baked hot cross buns, you’ll want to look for those that are baked instore at Coles or Woolworths or made fresh daily from stores like Bakers Delight. These products will usually show a baked-on date as well as a use-by date. 

Other supermarket buns are usually frozen and then defrosted when they hit the shelves. This is convenient for supermarkets and helps them keep up with stock demands, but freezing can affect shape, freshness and texture.

6. Check the ingredients list 

Flour, sugar, spices, butter and dried fruit are some of the ingredients you expect to see when you look at the ingredients list of a hot cross bun. Unfortunately, they are usually packed with way more ingredients than the basics. 

Almost all the products we tested also contain emulsifiers, antioxidants, thickeners and gums, added flavours, acidity regulators and preservatives. Ingredients are listed on labels in descending order by weight, so the first ingredient will be present in the largest amount, and so on. 

Also be mindful that sugar can be listed multiple times under different names like maple syrup, sucrose and dextrose.

How we test

Products

We tested hot cross bun products available in major Australian supermarket chains and bakeries, including Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, IGA and Bakers Delight. 

Traditional fruit buns and chocolate buns, along with their gluten-free varieties, were tested separately. 

Price is for the pack size specified and bought in Sydney stores in January 2026 (not on special).

Tasting

Our panel of three experts tasted the hot cross bun samples ‘blind’ (without knowing the brands) in a random order. 

Each bun was tasted fresh (untoasted) and toasted. We do this so that whether you like a fresh or toasted bun, you can see how they’re rated by our experts.

Scores

The experts independently judged all hot cross bun products. The ����Vlog Expert Rating (our overall score) consists of the taste test score, which is made up of 50% for the toasted sample and 50% for the fresh (untoasted) sample. 

The experts rate each hot cross bun on flavour, appearance, aroma and texture. These sensory characteristics are weighted as follows:

• flavour (50%)
• appearance (20%)
• aroma (15%)
• texture (15%).

We recommend traditional and chocolate hot cross buns with a ����Vlog Expert Rating of 75% or more, and recommend gluten-free hot cross buns (all varieties) with a score of 70% or more.

Meet our expert taste testers

Brigid Treloar has been a freelance food consultant for over 30 years. The author of eight cookbooks, she also contributes to newspapers and magazines, reviews restaurants, judges cookery and recipe competitions, and judges chocolate in the Sydney Royal Fine Food Show Competition. 

Brigid has presented specialist cooking classes around Australia and overseas, and often appears on TV and radio. She’s an industry assessor for Le Cordon Bleu, advises many of Australia’s food companies on product and recipe development, and also provides recipes and cooking information for company websites.

Ian Huntley is an accomplished pastry chef with over 35 years of experience in the industry. Trained in the UK and Switzerland, Ian specialised in confectionery, cake decorating, and bread making before relocating to Australia in the mid-1980s. Upon arrival, he spent five years honing his craft at two of Sydney’s premier hotels, The InterContinental and The Regent.

Ian went on to establish his own wholesale patisserie business, supplying a variety of desserts and pastries to airlines, department stores, hospitals, restaurants, and coffee shops across the region. His commitment to excellence and innovation has made him a respected figure in the Australian patisserie scene.

Today, Ian serves as the Chair of Judges for the Royal Agricultural Society’s Professional Bakery competition and is an Assessor for Patisserie and part time teacher at  Le Cordon Bleu Sydney. His passion for pastry and dedication to nurturing the next generation of chefs continues to inspire.

Eddie Stewart started his culinary career at the young age of 16 and has amassed over 20 years of experience in the industry. Throughout his career, he has worked in various boutique restaurants and world-renowned hotels to develop his own unique style.

He has served as the Head Chef of Savoury and Business Development Manager for the internationally acclaimed Black Star Pastry in Sydney, where he has gained extensive knowledge of the intricacies of the culinary business.

In 2020, he joined forces with Min Chai to create a brand new concept called Tokyo Lamington, where you can indulge in deliciously created lamingtons and other baked items.

The post Best tasting hot cross buns: Aldi, Coles, Woolworths, Bakers Delight and more appeared first on ����Vlog.

But whatever. The important thing is that it’s hot cross bun season – which means it’s also not cross bun (NXB) season.

Never seen one? That’s not surprising: these limited-edition buns are hard to find in the wild, and shoppers tend to go into COVID toilet paper mode when they see them and grab as many as they can carry.

How did these elusive Easter treats come to exist?

It all started with fruit-free, choc chip and apple and cinnamon buns, through to the strange-but-not-completely-absurd Vegemite and cheese buns, but these last few years have been wild.

Previous crimes against tastebuds have included buns inspired by Pizza Shapes, fairy bread, Iced Vovos, burger sauce, and other egregious offerings.

These Frankenbuns seem to get weirder each year, and they’ve almost become a PR stunt to boost the supermarkets’ cred: better to be infamous for your questionable creations than ignored for playing it safe, right?

Each year, we dare intrepid ����Vlog bun enthusiasts to taste them, to help you decide which ones are worth the dough and which buns belong in the bin.

Here’s what was in this year’s bun bonanza (or bun-anza, if you will):

On this page:

Doritos Inspired Cheesy Jalapeno Hot Cross Buns (Coles)

Indulgent Cinnabon Bakery Inspired Hot Cross Buns (Woolworths)

Arnott’s Mint Slice Inspired Hot Cross Buns (Coles)

Reese’s Hot Cross Buns (IGA)

Bakers Life Indulgent Rocky Road Inspired Hot Cross Buns (Aldi)

Matcha & Raspberry Inspired Hot Cross Buns (Coles)

Terry’s Chocolate Orange Hot Cross Buns (IGA)

Coles Doritos Inspired Cheesy Jalapeno Hot Cross Buns

• Price: $5.50 per 4-pack
• Price per bun: $1.38

����Vlog staff still speak in hushed tones about one bun from 2023: the Coles Special Burger Sauce NXB.

Studded with pickle pieces and topped with cheese, it elicited such responses as “absolutely diabolical aftertaste”, “tastes like vomit”, “why would you do that??”.

The controversy seems to have spurred Coles on and now the supermarket creates increasingly unholy flavour combinations each year. 

In 2024 it was Pizza Shapes (described by one taste tester as “the worst tasting thing ever; 0/10”) and Iced Vovo (“tastes like playdough and jam”) NXBs. In 2025, they came out with the slightly more tame Wagon Wheel NXB (“it made promises it didn’t deliver”).

In 2026, Coles is living up to its reputation as a purveyor of gastronomic atrocities with a Doritos collab. (We’re already a little nervous about Easter 2027.)

Despite the horrors of years past, ����Vlog staff bravely lined up to trial these controversial buns. 

What the supermarket says:

“Inspired by the flavours of Doritos these hot cross buns are flavoured with cheese, Doritos inspired seasoning, spicy jalapenos and tomato granules.”

What our taste testers said:

• It’s an offense to mankind.
• I think it’s worse than the Coles burger sauce one. 
• It’s very spicy, quite salty, entirely unpleasant.
• I don’t like it but I don’t hate it as much as I thought I would.
• Would I buy it? God no.
• It does taste like cheesy jalapeno, so if that’s what you’re after in a hot cross bun, then (a) go for it, and (b) good god why would you want that.
• Flavour is beyond gross.
• It’s not a hot cross bun, but if you gave it to me heated up and said “this is a cheesy jalapeno bread” I’d be like mmmm.
• Tastes a bit like sick.
• They’re a zero out of 10 and they go in the bin.
• You could use these for chemical warfare.

Editorial director Mark had an especially violent reaction to the Doritos buns:

“I took one bite, I held it in my mouth for two seconds, then I started dry heaving,” he says.

“I tried to swallow it but I had to spit it all out in the bin. Honestly, it pretty much made me vomit.

“It’s the worst thing I’ve ever eaten in my life.”

Our verdict: 

We thought they’d crossed a line with the Pizza Shapes NXB, but it seems that Coles won’t stop in its pursuit of the most disgusting dough creation.

At this point the most shocking thing Coles could do at Easter 2027 is to stop making not cross buns altogether, but we have an uncomfortable feeling that they’ll find a way to top this faux-cheese faux pas.

Honestly, we’re not even sure what to think any more. Should you buy it? Sure, why not? $5.50 isn’t much to pay for the entertainment you’ll get from feeding this to your friends. (Though it’s probably better served to your enemies.)

We can only assume that these were created more for publicity than public consumption. Unless you want to risk permanently damaging your tastebuds (or those of your arch-nemesis), we suggest you avoid these at all costs.

Woolworths Indulgent Cinnabon Bakery Inspired Hot Cross Buns

• Price: $5.50 per 4-pack
• Price per bun: $1.38 each

In 2025, Woolies cleverly cashed in on the Biscoff craze.

The strategy paid off: the Biscoff buns were the most popular in our taste test last year.

They know they’re onto a good thing, so this year they’re leveraging people’s obsession with Cinnabon – the popular American chain of bakeries known for its signature cinnamon rolls topped with cinnamon-infused cream cheese frosting.

Since cinnamon is already a core HXB ingredient, a Cinnabon bun isn’t exactly pushing the envelope but given the hype around this flavour combo, it was almost guaranteed to be a sweet success for the supermarket.

What the supermarket says

“An irresistible cinnamon infused bun filled with ooey gooey cream cheese-style filling.”

What our taste testers said:

• Like a really indulgent cinnamon scroll.
• Tastes really good! Not as sweet as raw Cinnabon.
• These are my absolute favourite. I freeze packets of them and eat them throughout the year because I love them so much. 
• I love it! The soft centre is divine indulgence.
• The filling offsets the dryness of the bun but makes the dough around it soggy.
• This is the least unpleasant of the lot.
• Excellent – no notes.
• I will 100% be buying these.
• The GOAT. The best one by miles.

Our verdict:

Everyone wants these buns, hun! They were far and away the most popular, with many taste testers going back for seconds (and thirds and more).

Coles Easter Arnott’s Mint Slice Inspired Hot Cross Buns

• Price: $5.50 per 4-pack
• Price per bun: $1.38 each

This is the fourth Coles x Arnott’s collab, and the supermarket has continued its strategy of appealing to shoppers’ sense of nostalgia with this take on the beloved Australian biscuit.

Messing with an iconic treat is risky business – especially when it’s combined with something as traditional as a hot cross bun.

So, the biscuit-to-bun transition: delicious, or disappointing?

What the supermarket says:

“A true Aussie icon, inspired by the flavours of Mint Slice these hot cross buns are packed with choc chunks and peppermint flavoured fudge pieces.”

What our taste testers said:

• Not half bad, just a bit dry.
• It tastes exactly like a Mint Slice but without the benefit of the crunch.
• Poor cousin to the actual Mint Slice biscuit – lacks the crunch and fondant combo.
• Not chocolatey enough.
• Not terrible, but definitely worse than a normal hot cross bun.
• There’s not much point to it.

Our verdict:

If you’re a Mint Slice fan, these could be worth buying for the novelty factor alone. However, Mint Slice purists may be disappointed by the texture and dialled-down flavour.

If, like me, you’re not a fan of toothpaste flavour with your hot cross bun, leave these on the shelf.

IGA Reese’s Hot Cross Buns

• Price: $7.50 per 4-pack
• Price per bun: $1.88

IGA is giving the big supermarkets a run for their money by going for a big-name brand collab.

Choc hot cross buns are already popular – why not take them to the next level with Reese’s salty-sweet signature flavour?

Joining forces with a well-known brand has paid off for Coles and Woolies, but will it do the same for this smaller supermarket chain?

What our taste testers said:

• Very salty peanut butter flavour. The bun was a bit of a non-event.
• Pretty one-dimensional.
• I love Reese’s cups so expectations were high. Overall great combo, but needs more moisture and peanut butter.

• No real chocolate flavour; rather bland. 
• Disappointing!

Our verdict:

We say this every year, but if you want the OG, just buy the OG. 

At $7.50 a pack, these are a pretty pricey way to experience disappointment.

Head for the confectionery aisle instead.

Aldi Bakers Life Indulgent Rocky Road Inspired Hot Cross Buns

• Price: $4.49 per 4-pack
• Price per bun: $1.12

Budget supermarket chain Aldi is famous for creating cheaper knock-offs of popular products, and its in-house products often rival the big brands.

The German giant has always done its own thing rather than trying to compete directly with the Big Two supermarkets, so it’s gone with a classic flavour instead of relying on the popularity of a well-known brand.

Opinion was split over last year’s Aldi offering, a banoffee-flavoured bun, with some taste testers loving the bun-ana flavour and others feeling they should be hit with the ban(ana) hammer.

 It’s on shelves again this year if it a-peels to you. 

Has Aldi chosen a rocky path with its rocky road NXB, or will the classic flavour combo mean smooth sailing?

What the supermarket says:

“With milk & white choc chips, raspberry flavoured fudge pieces & toasted coconut flakes.”

What our taste testers said:

• Bit of a nothing bun really. Tastes fine.
• Too sweet and unpleasant fake flavour.
• The rocky road bits are really small; almost non-existent.
• Surprisingly not terrible.
• Not enough rocky road bits.
• This is awful! Dry, crumbly, weird Cherry Ripe/coconut thing going on.

Our verdict:

Aldi’s buns don’t actually contain any marshmallow, which is widely considered to be a key ingredient of rocky road. Can these even really claim to be rocky road without them?

Whether or not the lack of marshmallows is a dealbreaker, these are unlikely to rock-y your world.

If the mouldy-looking coconut pieces don’t put you off, the taste will: they’re dry, lacking in flavour and just generally underwhelming.

Coles Matcha & Raspberry Inspired Hot Cross Buns

• Price: $5.50 per 4-pack
• Price per bun: $1.38

Matcha seems to be everywhere and in everything these days – and now it’s in your hot cross buns.

But is that a good idea? Our taste testers munched through these matcha buns to find out.

What the supermarket says:

“Inspired by the flavours of a raspberry matcha latte these hot cross buns are flavoured with matcha green tea and packed with creamy white chocolate chips and raspberry flavoured fudge pieces.”

What our taste testers said:

• You can’t taste the matcha. I normally hate matcha and there is only a hint of it. I’d buy it.
• A bit doughy. 
• Flavour is a little lacking.
• Could be worse.
• Nooooo.
• Doesn’t taste like matcha at all.
• Odd. The raspberry dominates; it tastes like Allens raspberry lollies.
• I can’t taste the matcha, which is not a bad thing.
• It’s a disturbing colour.
• Matcha has to work hard for me in the first place, and this one isn’t working hard enough.

Our verdict:

Matcha is polarising: some people love it; others think it tastes like dusty grass clippings. 

Whichever camp you fall in, you probably won’t hate these because they don’t actually taste much-a like matcha.

IGA Terry’s Chocolate Orange Hot Cross Buns

• Price: $7.50 per 4-pack
• Price per bun: $1.88

An old-school British brand, Terry’s Chocolate Orange tends to have an older target market – some younger taste testers had never heard of it before.

But it has stood the test of time and now it’s in a bakery section near you. 

Were these buns Terry-ble or Terry-fic? 

What our taste testers said:

• Tastes like orange flavoured medicine. Would I buy it? NEVER EVER.
• Not too sweet but a little dry.
• Could do with some choc chunks.
• Good texture; not enough chocolate.

• Pretty meh.
• I love Terrys so I was very excited. True to taste. I liked it.
• Pleasant aroma but bland flavour.
• Disappointing – I thought this would be a lot better as I love Terry’s Chocolate Orange.

Our verdict:

As with many of these brand collabs, it doesn’t hold a candle to the OG product.

If you have a hankering for Terry’s Chocolate Orange, these won’t hit the spot. 

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The post Not cross buns: Culinary crime or tasty treat? appeared first on ����Vlog.

When I first began my sourdough journey during COVID-19 (yes, I’m a living cliche), I went down all the wormholes, read all the forums and basically just thoroughly confused myself with overly complicated baking information.��

I eventually found a routine that worked to produce a decent loaf, but as time went on, I kept wondering – is all this palaver really necessary to make bread?��

The intricate timings, the multiple sets of stretch-and-folds, the cold fermenting, the proofing. It’s all a-bloody-lot when you’ve got two kids, a job and a house to run.��

So gradually I started cutting corners. And I kept on cutting. Until eventually I realised that very few of the steps you read online are actually 100% necessary to produce a decent loaf of bread.��

My family devours a loaf every couple of days, so I just wanted to produce a homemade one that tasted good enough to be accepted by my kids.

I don’t need my bread to win any awards for the perfect crumb, the ideal sourdough ‘ear’ (that fancy-looking flap of crust on the top of the loaf) or the most artisanal sourdough bubbles.

If you’re in the same boat, here’s my lazy guide to sourdough.

What you’ll need

Kitchen stuff

• A bowl
• Kitchen scales
• A 4L Dutch oven or a standard loaf tin (glass or stainless steel)

Ingredients

• 500g flour (you can use organic flour or baker’s flour or just the cheapest plain flour from the supermarket)
• 350ml water��
• 8g salt (any kind)
• 60g sourdough starter*

Method

1. Grab your cold sourdough starter out of the fridge.
   
   
2. Add ingredients to the bowl and mix until it forms a shaggy ball (start mixing with a spoon then finish with your hands to get the last dry bits into the ball). Chuck a wet tea towel or beeswax wrap over it and leave it in the kitchen for half an hour or so (doesn’t have to be precise).
   
   
3. Wet your hands and do one set of stretch-and-folds in the bowl (why bother taking it out and dirtying your bench?).
   
   To do a stretch-and-fold, all you need to do is pick up a side of the dough, stretch it out and upwards a little, and fold it over into the middle. Rotate the bowl (or your hands) 90 degrees and repeat three more times until you have folded all four “sides”.
   
   If this explanation makes no sense, just google a short video and it should become clear. Stretch-and-folds are really easy and this process should take under 20 seconds. At this point you can mix in fancy things like olives, cheese or linseeds, but I prefer to keep it simple.
   
   
4. Leave the bowl on the bench all day long while you live your life without thinking about dough at all. Depending on the temperature in your home, this can be anywhere from 5–6 hours on a hot summer’s day, to 10–12 hours on a cold winter’s day.*
   
   But there’s plenty of wiggle room and you can always leave it for an hour or two longer or shorter if it’s more convenient for you. It’s ready to bake when the dough is nicely puffed up (if you leave it too long, the puff collapses and it won’t bake well).
   
   At this time of year, I usually mix my loaf at breakfast time, around 8am, then bake in the evening after putting the kids to bed at around 6–7pm.��
   
   
5. When you settle down to watch Netflix after dinner, preheat your oven to 230 degrees, wet your hands and scoop your ball of dough out of the bowl, tucking any raggedy bits under the bottom to make it more of a smooth, tight dome shape on the top (again, do this in your hands or in the bowl – no dirty benches here.)
   
   Chuck your ball into a baking paper-lined Dutch oven and pop the lid on. If you’re using a loaf tin, grease it or line with baking paper and then roughly pull the dough into a kind of log shape instead of a ball. Pop it into your lined tin for an hour or so before baking.
   
   
6. If baking in a Dutch oven, cook at 230 degrees for 30 minutes with the lid on, then 30 minutes with the lid off. For an open loaf tin, bake for 45 minutes at 200 degrees.

*Note that this guidance is based on the climate where I live in North Coast NSW. If you live in a significantly warmer or cooler climate, you’ll need to tweak the times to suit you. But the idea is the same – find out how many hours it needs to puff up and bake it then.

Healthy and cheap

My original motivation for making my own bread was to avoid all the additives and preservatives in traditional supermarket bread. I live in a small town where there is nowhere to buy real, fresh sourdough, so if I wanted ‘real’ bread, I had to make my own.��

But along the way I also realised my loaf was a hell of a lot cheaper than store-bought too. If using the cheapest plain flour, you can produce a loaf for about 60 cents.��

Nowadays I splash out on organic flour that I buy in bulk which ends up costing about $2 a loaf – still a significant saving on buying a decent loaf of bread at the supermarket or bakery.

It also takes less than 24 hours from start to finish, so in the morning I simply take stock of how much bread we have left after breakfast and school lunches are done and decide whether I need to mix up a batch of dough for tomorrow’s bread.

I actually find it more convenient than having to factor in emergency trips to the supermarket for tomorrow’s loaf. Mixing up a loaf is way faster than a supermarket run.

The post The laziest-ever sourdough recipe for cheap and easy bread appeared first on ����Vlog.

Golden, salty and buttery, the cheese toastie or grilled cheese sandwich is oozing with elite snack status: it’s tasty, super easy to make and big on comfort. A traditional classic that’s loved far and wide, it’s also often morphed with various twists and fanciful fillings. But what makes the perfect melty cheese sambo? What’s the ultimate cheese combo, how should you cook it and is it really a crime to include a slice of tomato?��

Two ����Vlog experts share their advice on everything from which bread to use, how many cheeses you need and their insider hacks to take your toasties to oozy new heights.��

The bread

����Vlog expert taste-test panellist and self-proclaimed curd nerd, Penny Lawson of Penny’s Cheese Shop (home of arguably Sydney’s best cheese toasties), pumps out her famous sandwiches every day and they usually sell out before lunchtime. So she knows a thing or two about toastie perfection.

When it comes to bread, Penny uses day-old sourdough: “I think it makes a better toastie, as slightly less moisture in the bread creates a crispier crust.” Penny also believes the flavour of sourdough bread improves after a day.

����Vlog kitchen guru, Fiona Mair, recommends using a thick-cut bread (any type you like will do). You could use sourdough, sandwich-style bread or rye, whichever you prefer – just ensure the bread is not too soft or too thinly sliced.

The cheese��

Fiona says: “If you’re making a plain cheese toastie, choose a sharp, stronger-tasting cheese like cheddar or a great melting cheese like swiss, gouda or gruyere. My perfect combo is cheddar and swiss.”��

Penny also recommends using good-quality cheese and combining a cheddar with a melty cheese such as gruyere, mozzarella or alpine cheese.��

“To up the delicious factor you might also want to add a nice stinky cheese,” she says.��

Both experts give the top tip of grating your cheese onto the bread so it melts more quickly, softly and evenly. It’s not a good idea to use pre-shredded cheese as it is often coated with anti-caking agents that prevent it from melting evenly and can make the texture quite rubbery. If you enjoy the convenience of pre-sliced cheese, find out��which is the best sliced cheese��in our review.

����Vlog tip: If you’re using strongly flavoured meat or char-grilled vegetables, consider pairing it with mozzarella, which has a milder flavour than stronger cheeses such as cheddar or swiss.��

The butter

Our experts part ways when it comes to whether or not you need butter. Somewhat controversially, Penny doesn’t use butter at all. “Mine are more like a triple decker in the order of cheese, bread, cheese, bread, cheese,” she says.

But, hold up – did someone just say parmesan-crusted?

Fiona’s hot toastie tip is: “Sandwich the bread together and spread the outer sides of bread liberally with butter. For extra flavour, grate some parmesan onto a plate and press the outer buttered bread onto the grated parmesan. When you cook it, it will give you a nice golden parmesan crust.”

If you’re on Team Butter, check out our butter taste-test and reviews to find out which one you need to attain toastie perfection.

Cooking, condiments and fillings

Fiona says: “Add a sprinkling of pepper or cayenne pepper for a bit of spice. I like to add finely chopped chives, green onions or mayonnaise for added flavour.

“I also love a sandwich press to cook a toastie. We have reviewed some top-performing options in the ����Vlog labs if you’re wanting to up your toastie game, and they can range in price from around $20 to over $400 for grills with more sophisticated features.

“If you don’t want a new appliance, though, you could also consider a great little tool called a cast-iron grill press (see pictured). The idea is that you use your skillet or frying pan to cook your sandwich, then place the press on top to help achieve an evenly browned crust, remembering to flip halfway.”

Penny cooks hers under the grill and says: “I personally like adding raw finely chopped onion, just after the cheese has melted. Or fresh chives. My customers would argue very strongly for the inclusion of jalapeño and salami. I am an absolute ‘hard no’ on fresh tomato in the sandwich though (but I’m OK if it’s served on the side).”

Other popular cheese toastie additions, fillings and condiments include ham, of course, as well as kimchi, sauerkraut, mustard, avocado, tinned spaghetti… get as weird and wonderful as you like.��

The post How to make the best-ever cheese toastie appeared first on ����Vlog.

Things have certainly changed. (Traditional hot cross bun purists, you may want to stop reading now.)��

These days, even varieties like apple and cinnamon or raspberry and white chocolate hot cross buns fail to raise eyebrows – they’re stocked as standard alongside traditional, fruit-free, gluten-free and brioche hot cross buns in all the major supermarkets.

Who knew things could get so complicated?

Well, hold onto your hats (buns?), because we’ve scoured the internet to find the weirdest and wackiest hot cross bun flavours, bun hacks and hot cross bun products that’ve been dreamed up around the world.

And if you prefer your buns more traditional, don’t miss our taste test review of 23 products to see which store-bought buns taste best.

Cadbury Creme Egg hot cross bun toastie

This mashes together two Easter staples – hot cross buns and Cadbury Creme Eggs – and the result is… well, let’s just say that it’s a sure-fire way to get as much sugar into your gob as possible in one hit.

Basically, you just slap a Cadbury Creme Egg in the middle of your hot cross bun, whack it on the sandwich press and then sit back and enjoy the feeling of your pancreas getting a heck of a workout.

Ready to go there? You’ll need a sandwich press that’s up to the challenge. Check out our��sandwich press reviews��to find out which one can handle the ooze.

The savoury hot cross bun

If you need to give your sweet tooth a break but you’re not ready to get off the bun bandwagon, savoury hot cross buns could be the answer to your dilemma.

One particularly divisive recipe was created by the people behind an iconic Australian flavour: Vegemite and cheese hot cross buns.��

These savoury snacks have plenty of umami from a quarter of a cup of Australia’s favourite salty spread, plus three-quarters of a cup of parmesan cheese.

For the final salty flourish, they’re topped off with piped Vegemite crosses. (Although you can probably whip up a reduced-salt version and no-one will ever know: many of the taste-testers in��our mighty Mite taste test couldn’t tell the difference between regular Vegemite and its reduced-salt version, which was voted as the favourite.)

If you’re not a Vegemite fan but you need to give your sweet tooth a rest, there’s also , complete with crispy bacon crosses.��

And then there’s these from Sydney restaurant Bodega.��

Liquid hot cross buns

This is where things get even weirder. No matter how quirky the flavour, we’re used to seeing hot cross buns in solid form, but it seems that some people are keen to push the envelope even further.��

in time for Easter last year. Costing $19.99 for 500mL, the 20% alcohol liqueur was a small batch gin blended with nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and ginger flavours.��

Hot cross buns on ice

When we taste-tested hot cross bun-flavoured ice cream, some taste testers weren’t keen on the idea, labelling it a “novelty”. But plenty of testers loved the idea. Woolworths returned with in 2022, but Coles seems to have ditched the idea.

The post The wildest hot cross bun hybrids from gin to Vegemite appeared first on ����Vlog.

On this page:

• Cinnamon scroll recipe – how do the mixes compare?
• How easy were they to prepare?
• How well did they perform?
• Fiona’s verdict
• A note on nutrition

Fast forward to now and home baking shows no sign of slowing down, but this time around cinnamon scrolls may be the new sourdough, according to our sources. 

Of course you can make them from scratch, but a packet mix seems far more convenient. So Fiona Mair, ����Vlog home economist, has put the cinnamon scroll offerings from well-known brands Greens and White Wings to the test, to see which is best.

Cinnamon scroll recipe – how do the mixes compare?

At first glance they appear remarkably similar, but a look at the ingredients and method suggests they’ll likely turn out a little differently.

“The White Wings scrolls recipe is more traditional,” says Fiona, “in that it contains yeast and you need to allow the dough to rest before baking.” You’re also required to add an egg. 

“The Green’s scroll recipe, on the other hand, is similar to that for scones, with the only added ingredients being butter and milk,” she says.

How much do they cost?

A pack of Green’s Temptations Cinnamon Scroll costs $4 and makes nine scrolls. A pack of  White Wings Crafted Cinnamon Scrolls, which also makes nine scrolls, is more expensive at $6.

But when you’re looking at cost, you also need to factor in the ingredients you have to supply yourself to make them. And White Wings requires more extra ingredients (1 egg, 120g butter and 120mL milk) than Green’s (60g butter, a little more than 200mL milk).

As a result, the Green’s scrolls end up costing $4.86 for nine, or $0.54 per scroll. Whereas the White Wings scrolls are $7.66 for nine, or $0.85 per scroll.

How easy were they to prepare?

Preparation time

Green’s: 10–12 mins

White Wings: 25–30mins plus two hours’ rest time

“Green’s instructions are easy to follow, and the scrolls are easy to prepare,” says Fiona. “The only difficulty is rolling out the dough to the correct size and cutting them evenly. But if you’re going for the homemade look, that really doesn’t matter.”

White Wings scrolls, while still fairly easy to prepare, take a bit more time and effort. 

“There are a lot of steps to follow, and extra effort is required kneading the dough by hand for eight minutes, making sure the dough is not too sticky or too dry,” says Fiona.

“This may be a little difficult if you haven’t any experience in yeast doughs. And rolling out the dough to the correct size and cutting them evenly can be tricky.

“These cinnamon scrolls aren’t something you can quickly whip up if you’re having guests over. However, if you’re organised you can prepare them ahead of time and refrigerate overnight so they’re ready for baking the next day.”

Ease of use score

(Includes scores for ease of following the recipe and ease of preparing the scrolls):

Green’s: 85%

White Wings: 80%

How well did they perform?

Both recipes performed well, according to Fiona. The resulting scrolls had fairly evenly risen shapes, with golden brown tops and bases, although the White Wings scrolls rose slightly higher than the Green’s and had a firmer base. They both had a tender, melt-in-the-mouth crumb, weren’t too sweet and had just the right amount of cinnamon. 

But there were some differences.

“The Green’s scrolls have a scone/soft biscuit texture, with a slightly buttery flavour,” says Fiona. 

As for the White Wings scrolls, “They have a soft crumb similar to a sweet bread, and their mouth feel and slightly yeasty flavour is more authentic,” she says.

“The scroll layers are easy to unravel for both products,” she warns.

Performance score 

(Includes scores for appearance, texture, flavour):

Green’s: 82%

White Wings: 87%

Fiona’s verdict

Overall, Fiona was impressed with both of these products, which is reflected in their overall scores. They were fairly evenly matched, with White Wings scrolls narrowly taking victory over Green’s in this head-to-head bake-off.

“The White Wings product requires a bit more time and effort – although if you’re organised you can start preparing them the day before you want to eat them – however, it’s a more authentic cinnamon scroll recipe,” says Fiona.

On the other hand, she says “The Green’s scrolls have a relatively quick preparation time, so are ideal if you need to make something at the last minute for unexpected guests.”

Overall score 

(60% performance, 40% ease of use):

Green’s: 83%

White Wings: 84%

A note on nutrition

OK so it’s hardly a spoiler alert to point out that cinnamon scrolls fall into the category of comfort food rather than health food. But if you’re tempted to reach for a second scrumptious scroll in a single sitting perhaps digest the following details first. 

If prepared as directed, each scroll has:

• 1220kJ (Green’s) or 1350kJ (White Wings), which is about 14–16% of the kilojoules an average Australian adult needs a day��
• 20.1g (Green’s) or 22.8g (White Wings) sugar – about 5–6 teaspoons.

The post Green’s vs White Wings: which cinnamon scroll recipe is best? appeared first on ����Vlog.

On this page:

• Is wholemeal bread healthy?
• How to choose a healthy bread
• Claims you can't count on
• Australian bread market dominated by two companies
• Wholemeal bread recipe

Whether it’s for your brekkie toast, breadcrumbs to use in a recipe or your favourite sandwich, we help you choose the best wholemeal bread loaf.

Is wholemeal bread healthy?

The short answer is yes, although some wholemeal breads are more nutritious than others.

Australian Dietary Guidelines tell us to eat more wholegrains, and recommend that adults up to 50 years eat six serves of grain (cereal) foods a day, mostly wholegrain and/or high cereal fibres (a standard serve of bread being equivalent to one 40g, 500kJ/120 calories slice, according to the guidelines). And there’s good reason for this.��

Wholegrains contain the nutrients – fibre, vitamins, minerals and a host of antioxidants and other phytochemicals – that can help protect you against heart disease, type 2 diabetes and colorectal cancer. The insoluble fibre in wholegrains helps keep things moving in the bowel, which means less constipation and better digestive health. And there’s evidence to suggest that wholegrains can help people reduce their risk of gaining weight.��

Bread can be a good source of wholegrains, but wholegrain content doesn’t have to be declared on the label and can vary widely depending on the bread type.

Wholemeal vs wholegrain

“Wholegrain” doesn’t just refer to the visible grains you can see in bread. Grains can be processed and separated into their three constituent parts (bran, germ and endosperm) and will still retain their nutrients, so as long as the three parts are added back into the food in the same proportions as the original unmilled grain, a food can still be classified as wholegrain.��

Breads made from wholemeal wheat flour are therefore a source of wholegrain, even if they don’t contain visible grains. On the flipside, multigrain breads might be bursting with obvious wholegrains, but are usually made from refined wheat (white) flour, and can have a lower overall wholegrain content than smooth, wholemeal bread. And both bread types are sometimes made with a combination of wholemeal and white flour.

How to choose a healthy bread

We asked Lisa Renn, Accredited Practising Dietitian and Spokesperson for the Dietitians Association of Australia what to consider when choosing bread.

Look for wholegrain

“Look for the words ‘wholemeal’ or ‘wholegrain’ high up in the ingredients list – wholegrain flour in particular,” suggests Renn. “Not only are wholegrains a good source of protein, dietary fibre and vitamins and minerals, but products made with wholegrains usually have a lower glycaemic index (GI) because the grains take longer to digest,” she says. And this slow release of energy means you stay full for longer.��

The Grains and Legumes Nutrition Council (GLNC) sets a daily wholegrain target intake of 48g for adults and children nine years and over, and claims permitted by its voluntary industry standard include ‘contains whole grain’ (if the product has ≥8g wholegrain per serve), ‘high in whole grain’ (≥16g per serve) and ‘very high in whole grain’ (≥24g per serve), so check for these statements on the pack.

Check fibre content

“Next, check for fibre content – the higher the better. One of the benefits of wholegrain bread is that it will contain all three types of fibre – insoluble, soluble and resistant starch – as it uses all parts of the grain,” says Renn.��

According to the Food Standards Code, a product is considered to be a ‘source of’ fibre if it contains at least 2g of dietary fibre per serve, a ‘good source’ if it contains at least 4g per serve and an ‘excellent source’ if a serve contains at least 7g of fibre.

Watch the salt

High-salt diets are associated with increased blood pressure, a known risk factor for heart disease and stroke, and breads can make a significant contribution to our salt intake. To help lower the Australian population’s salt intake, the government’s Food & Health Dialogue in 2010 collaborated with the bread industry to reformulate defined bread products (including sliced loaf breads) in order to meet a sodium content target of 400mg per 100g or less by the end of 2013.

A certain amount of salt is needed in bread production to help it rise and develop texture, but the amount used can vary depending on the type of bread and the manufacturer. For example, research from the George Institute found that rye bread – generally considered to be a healthy option – contained on average 468mg sodium per 100g, with some products containing as much as 660mg per 100g. While OK for most, “this amount could be of concern for people with high blood pressure who are trying to limit their sodium intake,” says Renn.

Claims you can’t count on

Front-of-pack claims about fibre or wholegrain content can help when deciding which bread to buy. But other claims on the pack may be less helpful than you think.����

‘Made from unbleached flour’

In the past, flour bleaching agents such as chlorine (additive 925), chlorine dioxide (926) and benzoyl peroxide (928) were used for aesthetic purposes to achieve whiter loaves of bread. But bread flour in Australia hasn’t been bleached for at least the last 15 years.��

‘No artificial preservatives’

This claim frequently appears on bread packs, but rarely do supermarket sliced breads contain synthetic preservatives. Instead, many contain vinegar to prevent mould growth and retain freshness.����

‘No added sugar’

It’s a widely held belief that white sliced bread contains added sugar. This may be the case in other countries, but – sweet breads like brioche aside – the small amount of sugar you see listed in the nutrition information panel in Australian breads is usually the type that occurs naturally in other ingredients or is produced by the yeast during the fermentation process.

Australian bread market dominated by two companies

The plethora of brands on the supermarket’s bread shelves may create the illusion of a competitive market, but a large proportion of those brands are owned by just two companies (that also make breads sold under supermarkets’ own brands). Here’s a sample of the brands (wholemeal and otherwise) they own:

• George Weston: Abbott’s Village Bakery, Bürgen, Gold Max, Tip Top (9 Grain, Sunblest, The One)
• Goodman Fielder: Buttercup, Country Life, Helga’s, Lawsons, Mighty Soft, Molenberg, Wonder White

Wholemeal bread recipe

This recipe, from ����Vlog home economist Fiona Mair, makes 1kg wholemeal multigrain bread.

Ingredients

• 2 ½ cups (375g) wholemeal plain flour
• 1 ½ cups (225g) bread flour or plain flour
• 1 ½ tsp salt
• 1 tbsp sugar
• ¾ tsp bread improver(optional)*
• 2 ½ tbsp milk powder
• 2 tsp dry yeast
• 2 tbsp bulgur wheat (burghul)��
• 1/3 cup linseeds or sunflower seeds
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 ½ cups (375mL) warm water

Method

1. In a stand mixer bowl add all the dry ingredients except the cracked wheat and the seeds, combine, then add the oil and water.��
2. Using the dough attachment, turn the mixer to a low speed to gradually combine the wet and dry ingredients. (If the dough is too dry add a tablespoon of water at a time or if it’s too wet add a tablespoon of flour at a time to get a soft elastic dough).
3. Add the cracked wheat and seeds.
4. Gradually increase the speed and knead for approximately 7 minutes or until the dough is smooth and slowly springs back when you press your finger into it.��
5. Pour the dough onto a lightly floured surface and form into a ball, then place the dough into a lightly oiled bowl. Cover with cling wrap and a tea towel and leave in a warm spot for an hour to double in size.��
6. Punch the dough down and shape the dough into a circle tucking in the bottom of the dough and place in a lined cast iron Dutch oven 21–22cm width or on a lined tray. Another option is to cut the dough in half and shape into rounds, placing them in a lined bread tin.��
7. Cover the dough with lightly oiled cling wrap and a tea towel and allow to prove for a further 40 minutes.
8. Preheat the oven to 210°C (fan-forced).
9. Once dough has risen remove the cling wrap and tea towel, brush with milk and sprinkle with sesame seeds if desired��
10. Place on the middle shelf of your oven, bake for 50 mins or 25–30 mins if halved. You’ll know it’s ready if it sounds hollow when tapped. Remove from the tin and cool on a rack.��

Note:

�� ��If you prefer to make the bread by hand, follow this method:

1. In a large bowl add all the dry ingredients including the cracked wheat and the seeds, gradually mix in the oil and water.��
2. Once the mixture is combined, pour out onto a floured bench top and knead for at least 10 minutes. (If the dough is too dry add a tablespoon of water at a time or if it is too wet add a tablespoon of flour at a time to get a soft elastic dough). The dough should be smooth, not sticky, and slowly spring back when you press your finger into it.��
3. Continue to follow method from step 5.����

*Bread improver assists in the activation of gluten and helps produce gas which improves the processes of dough kneading and fermentation. Available from supermarkets.

The post Is wholemeal bread healthy? appeared first on ����Vlog.

On this page:

• Banana bread baking mixes
• Pre-made loaf and slices
• Pre-made bars or muffins
• Best-value banana bread
• Quickest to make
• Banana, sugar and sodium content
• Kilojoules in banana bread
• Gluten-free
• How to make banana bread

But if you’re finding it hard to find pantry staples such as flour and sugar in your local supermarket, there are other ways to get your banana bread fix.��

Here, we compare supermarket banana bread baking mixes and�� pre-made options to find out which is the best value, which contains the most banana, and more. We also threw into the mix a homemade banana bread baked to our ����Vlog home economist Fiona Mair’s recipe.��

Banana bread baking mixes

(In order of price, low to high)

*Price per 100g as prepared

Coles Banana Bread Baking Mix

Price per 100g*: $0.54

Number of bananas needed: 2 (approx 250g)

Good to know

• Cheapest overall (pre-made or baking mix)
• Contains 87% Australian ingredients

White Mill Banana Bread Mix (Aldi)

Price per 100g*: $0.58

Number of bananas needed: 2 (200g)

Good to know��

• Second-cheapest overall����
• Contains 91% Australian ingredients

Greens Classic Banana Bread

Price per 100g*: $0.63

Number of bananas needed: 2 (approx 250g)

Good to know

• Equal third-cheapest overall
• Contains 87% Australian ingredients

White Wings Banana Muffin

Price per 100g*: $0.64

Number of bananas needed: 0

Good to know

• Only option that doesn’t need fresh banana
• Contains the least amount of banana of all products (5% dried banana)
• Contains 90% Australian ingredients

Coles Gluten Free Banana Bread Baking MIx

Price per 100g*: $0.76

Number of bananas needed: 3 (approx 300g)

Good to know

• Gluten-free
• Contains 63% Australian ingredients

Woolworths Free From Gluten Banana Bread

Price per 100g*: $0.80

Number of bananas needed: 2 (approx 250g)

Good to know

• Gluten-free
• Contains 63% Australian ingredients
• Has the least protein (3.4g/100g)
• Has the most saturated fat (12g/100g), which is half the maximum recommended adult daily intake
• As prepared, makes the smallest loaf (780g)

Donna Hay Wholesome Banana Bread

Price per 100g*: $0.95

Number of bananas needed: 4 (about 1.5 cups)

Good to know

• Most expensive baking mix��
• Contains 98% Australian ingredients
• As prepared, makes the largest loaf at 1250g

Homemade banana bread

Price per 100g*: $0.63

Number of bananas needed: 4 (about 2 cups)

Good to know

• Equal third-cheapest per 100g overall
• Makes the second-largest loaf (970g)
• ����Vlog home economist Fiona says one of the benefits of homemade banana bread is you can add nuts and control the sweetness.

Pre-made loaf and slices

(In order of price, low to high)

Coles Banana Bread

Price per 100g: $0.76

Percentage of banana: 26%

Good to know

• Contains 96% Australian ingredients

Woolworths Banana Loaf Cake

Price per 100g:�� $0.82

Percentage of banana: 28%

Good to know

• Contains 94% Australian ingredients
• Of the pre-made options, contained the most amount of banana

The Cake Stall Banana Bread Slices (Aldi)

Price per 100g: $0.90

Percentage of banana: 27%

Good to know

• Contains 72% Australian ingredients
• Tied for having the least sugar (19.5/100g)

Coles Banana Bread Slices

Price per 100g: $1.00

Percentage of banana: 26%

Good to know

• Contains 93% Australian ingredients

Woolworths Banana Bread Slices

Price per 100g: $1.00

Percentage of banana: 27%

Good to know

• Contains 95% Australian ingredients

Coles Gluten Free Banana Bread Slices��

Price per 100g: $1.56

Percentage of banana: 20.5%

Good to know

• Gluten-free
• Contains 38% Australian ingredients

Woolworths Free From Gluten Banana Bread

Price per 100g: $1.56

Percentage of banana: 25%

Good to know

• Gluten-free
• Contains 72% Australian ingredients

Pre-made bars or muffins

(In order of price, low to high)

Coles Banana Muffins (4 Pack)

Price per 100g: $0.80

Percentage of banana: 26%

Good to know

• Contains 99% Australian ingredients

Coles Banana Mini Muffins (9 Pack)

Price per 100g: $1.11

Percentage of banana: 25%��

Good to know

• Contains 95% Australian ingredients

Woolworths Mini Banana Muffins (8 pack)

Price per 100g: $1.16

Percentage of banana: 26%

Good to know

• Contains 99% Australian ingredients

Coles Banana Muffin Bars (10 pack)

Price per 100g: $1.19

Percentage of banana: 11%

Good to know

• Contains 75% Australian ingredients

Woolworths Banana Muffin Bars (6 pack)

Price per 100g: $1.20

Percentage of banana: 15%

Good to know

• Contains 84% Australian ingredients

Soreen 5 Banana Lunchbox Loaves

Price per 100g: $3.33

Percentage of banana: 9%

Good to know

• Most expensive overall
• Made in the UK (0% Australian ingredients)
• Of the pre-made options, contains the least amount of banana
• Has the most protein (8.1g/100g)
• Tied for having the least sugar (19.5/100g)

Best-value banana bread

Baking mixes

The price we paid for baking mixes ranged from $1.79 (Aldi White Mill) to $7 (Donna Hay), and what you get for this is the dry ingredients (which commonly included wheat or rice flour, sugar, raising agents, cinnamon and flavour).��

Once we added the cost of the additional ingredients required*, like eggs, butter and bananas, we paid $4.86 for the Aldi mix while Donna Hay’s set us back $11.90.

Of course, each recipe makes a different-size loaf, so for a fair comparison, we’ve calculated the cost of each product per 100g.

The Coles packet mix banana bread was the cheapest, at $0.54 per 100g, while Donna Hay’s cost nearly twice as much at $0.95 per 100g.��

*As per Woolworths online shopping site in April 2020.

Pre-made banana bread products

The cheapest pre-made supermarket option was Coles Banana Bread loaf at $0.76/100g, while the most expensive was Soreen 5 Banana Lunchbox loaf at $3.33/100g. That’s $1.77/100g more than even the second-most expensive pre-made options (tied), Coles Gluten Free Banana Bread slices and Woolworths Free From Gluten Banana Bread.��

Homemade banana bread

Making banana bread from scratch may not be as convenient as buying a mix or pre-made bread, but it tied with Greens Baking Mix as the third-cheapest overall option at $0.63/100g. A pretty good option, if you’re prepared to put in a little extra elbow grease.

Quickest to make

With no preparation or baking required, the pre-baked options are obviously the most convenient of the lot for those of us short on time.��

Admittedly the packet mixes have an (ever-so-slight) edge over Fiona’s homemade recipe for convenience. To make them you simply add a few extra ingredients (usually eggs, butter or oil, milk and mashed bananas), mix and bake.��

Fiona’s recipe requires you to cream the butter and sugar before mixing in the other ingredients and baking, which adds 1 to 2 minutes to the prep time. And of course you also have to measure out the flour, sugar, bicarb and cinnamon.

The White Wings product takes just 18–20 minutes in the oven (understandable, given muffins are quicker to cook than loaves). The Greens, Coles Gluten Free and Aldi baking mixes need almost double that with 45–55 minutes in the oven. Woolies’ gluten-free option takes a little bit longer (50–55mins) while the others (including Fiona’s) take 55–60 mins to bake.

Banana, sugar and sodium content

Banana content

One of the best things about making banana bread, other than getting to eat it, is using up overripe bananas. If you have a glut of these, then Fiona’s homemade recipe or the Donna Hay baking mix are your best options as they both require four bananas.��

The White Wings banana muffin baking mix contains 5% dried banana and you’re not required to add fresh banana to the mixture.

Of the 13 pre-made options, nine contain 25% or more banana, with Woolworths Banana Loaf Cake containing the most (28%).��

Sugar content

Coles Banana Muffin Bars (10 pack), Donna Hay Baking Mix, Woolworths Banana Muffin Bars (6 pack) and Coles Gluten Free Baking Mix all list sugar as the first ingredient.��

Coles Banana Muffin Bars had the most sugar (as prepared), at 32g/100g. The Soreen and Aldi pre-made options had the least (19.5g/100g).

Sodium content

Donna Hay had the least amount of sodium (151mg/100g) while Woolworths’ gluten-free baking mix had the most (482mg/100g).

say foods with less than 400mg sodium per 100g are good, and less than 120mg per 100g is best. All of the options we looked at were higher than 120mg/100g, with six products over the 400mg per 100g recommendation.

Kilojoules in banana bread

recommends a limit of 600kJ per serve for discretionary foods such as banana bread.��

When we looked at the kilojoules per serve (as prepared) we found 17 out of 20 supermarket options exceeded this, with five products containing more than double the recommended amount per serve:

• The Cake Stall Banana Bread Slices (1420kJ)
• Coles Banana Bread slices (1430kJ)
• Woolworths Banana Bread slices (1460kJ)
• Coles Banana Muffins (1570kJ)
• Donna Hay baking mix (1580kJ)

The serving sizes ranged from 100 to 125g.

The products that did fall under the recommended guidelines – Woolworths Mini banana muffins 8 Pack (576kJ), Soreen 5 Banana Lunchbox Loaves (413kJ) and Coles Banana Mini Muffins 9 Pack (524kJ) – had smaller serving sizes of between 30 and 40g.��

Gluten-free

Of the products we looked at, the following are gluten free.

• Woolworths Free From Gluten Banana Bread Baking Mix
• Woolworths Free From Gluten Banana Bread Slices
• Coles Gluten Free Banana Bread Baking MIx
• Coles Gluten Free Banana Bread Slices��

Banana bread taste test

In 2017, we compared banana bread made in our kitchen lab from Donna Hay and Adriano Zumbo’s packet mixes with banana bread from White Wings, Lighthouse and Coles brand packet mixes, as well as Coles’ pre-baked banana bread and a homemade banana bread from ����Vlog home economist Fiona Mair.

Fifty ����Vlog staffers munched their way through all seven samples in a blind tasting then, in true Masterchef style, voted for their favourite.��

While many of the products tested have since either altered their ingredients list or are no longer available, it’s interesting to note that Fiona’s homemade banana bread was a convincing winner at the time, receiving 42% of the votes.��

(Donna Hay’s bread came in a distant second with 24% of the votes, while Adriano Zumbo’s bread was least popular with just 4% of the votes.)

This preference for homemade echoes the current opinion of ����Vlog staff. When asked which is the tastiest banana bread, 81% of staff polled said homemade is better than store-bought or bread made from a mix.

Comments included:��

• “It’s so easy to make and a good way to use up bananas that are getting on a bit.”
• “I can adapt it to what I have available (e.g. amount of ripe bananas) and other ingredients (e.g. nuts).”
• “I find baking mixes add unwanted ingredients, or I might want to source a recipe that caters for a dietary preference. I also like the challenge of homemade recipes.”

How to make banana bread

����Vlog home economist Fiona Mair, shares her recipe.

Ingredients

• 125g butter, softened
• 1 cup (175g) brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 cups mashed banana (approx. 4 small)
• 1¾ cup (225g) self-raising flour, sifted
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon��

Method��

1. Preheat oven to 160°C (325°F) and grease and line a 21cm x 14cm (2 litre capacity) loaf tin.
2. Place the butter, sugar and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for 1–2 minutes or until pale and creamy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. This can be done by hand if you don’t have an electric mixer
3. Add the eggs and beat well to combine. Then add the banana, flour, bicarbonate of soda, and cinnamon, stir to combine.
4. Spoon into prepared tin and bake for 55–60 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
5. Cool in the tin for 20 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. Cut into slices to serve.

Makes approx. 970g loaf.

The post Banana bread review appeared first on ����Vlog.

On this page:

• Which sliced white bread is best?
• Best regular white bread
• Best gluten-free white bread
• Bread ingredients: what is – and isn't – in sliced white bread?
• How we test
• Meet our expert taste testers

Generations of Aussie kids have been raised on white bread and Vegemite sandwiches. A slice of white bread is the perfect vehicle for a snag off the barbie. And it’d be a crime to make fairy bread using anything else. But are some sliced whites better than others?��

We test 30 supermarket sliced white breads (24 regular, six gluten-free) from brands including Abbott’s Village Bakery, Helga’s, Mighty Soft, Tip Top and Wonder White to see which loaf rises above the rest for both nutrition and taste.

Which sliced white bread is best?

Five of the 30 breads in our review achieved an overall score of 75% or more, meaning they delivered on both nutrition and taste in our expert panel blind taste test.

Interestingly, the top scoring bread we tested – Wonder Wholegrain White Smooth Wholegrain (78%) – contains wholegrains, but for all intents and purposes is a sliced white bread like all the others we tested. This is good news for parents who are keen for their kids to eat more wholegrains, but tired of their sandwiches being rejected for having ‘bits’ in them.

And the top scoring gluten-free breads are two of the cheapest in that category. Aldi’s Has No Gluten Free Sliced White Bread (77%) and Coles Gluten Free White Bread (77%) cost $0.80 and $0.90 per 100g, respectively – almost half the price of some other gluten free breads we tested.

Best regular white bread

Wonder Wholegrain White Smooth Wholegrain

• Overall score: 78%
• Price per 100g: $0.49
• % Australian ingredients (minimum): 90%

Experts say: Good overall appearance with even browning. Soft, springy crumb. Aeration evenly distributed across the loaf. Delicate sweet ferment aroma. Good flavour, tastes more wholemeal.

Wonder Active Low GI + Protein

• Overall score: 77%
• Price per 100g: $0.50
• % Australian ingredients (minimum): 80%

Experts say: Evenly browned all over. Pleasant, subtle ferment aroma. Good texture and even crumb with some large air holes in internal crumb. A good family loaf.

Tip Top The One White Sandwich

• Overall score: 75%
• Price per 100g: $0.49
• % Australian ingredients (minimum): 90%

Experts say: Loaf is baked well and kept its shape. Uniform crumb with an even distribution of holes. Even, soft texture. Good overall appearance.

Best gluten-free white bread

Coles Gluten Free White Bread

• Overall score: 77%
• Price per 100g: $0.90
• % Australian ingredients (minimum): 63%

Experts say: This bread is the closest to regular white bread. Good shape, evenly browned. Springy, open texture and distribution of air holes. Sweet, floury aftertaste with some grit.

Bread ingredients: what is – and isn’t – in sliced white bread?

Meaningful nutrients

White bread may pale (ahem) in comparison with other types of bread when it comes to nutrition, but if sliced white is your preference – or it’s all you can get your kids to eat – you can make healthier choices within the category by considering:

Salt

Diets high in sodium are associated with higher blood pressure, a known risk factor for heart disease and stroke, and bread can make a significant contribution to our salt intake.��

A certain amount of salt is needed in bread production to help it rise and develop texture. But the amount used can vary depending on the type of bread and the manufacturer.

To help lower the Australian population’s salt intake, the government’s Food & Health Dialogue in 2010 collaborated with the bread industry to reformulate defined bread products (including sliced loaf breads) to meet a sodium content target of 400mg per 100g or less by the end of 2013.��

Four of the breads we tested don’t meet this target:��

• Bakers Delight White Block Loaf
• Buttercup Country Split White
• Country Life Gluten Free & Dairy Free White
• Tip Top Sunblest Soft White Sandwich

Fibre

A high-fibre diet not only helps keep us regular, but it also plays a role in protecting us from heart disease and even some cancers. So when choosing a bread, the higher the fibre content the better.

According to the Food Standards Code, a product is considered a “source of” fibre if it contains at least 2g of dietary fibre per serve, a “good source” if it contains at least 4g per serve, and an “excellent source” if a serve contains at least 7g.

By this definition, some of the white breads we tested wouldn’t even be considered a source of fibre. But others are good fibre sources, and one – the Coles Gluten Free White Bread – is an excellent source.��

Claims you don’t need to worry about

Some front-of-pack nutrient claims can be useful when deciding which bread to buy, but other claims on the pack may be less helpful.

‘Made from unbleached flour’

In the past, flour bleaching agents were used for aesthetic reasons to achieve whiter loaves of bread. But bread flour in Australia hasn’t been bleached for at least the past 10 years. Despite this, many of the products we tested specify in the ingredients list that their wheat flour is ‘unbleached’.

‘No artificial preservatives’

This claim frequently appears on bread packs. But only one of the 30 products we tested has a synthetic preservative in its ingredients list (Buttercup Country Split White contains preservative 282, calcium propionate).��

‘No added sugar’

It’s a widely held belief that white sliced bread contains added sugar. This may be the case in other countries, but – apart from sweet breads such as brioche – the small amount of sugar in Australian breads is usually the type that occurs naturally in other ingredients or is produced by the yeast during the fermentation process. The exceptions are the six gluten-free breads, along with Baker’s Life White Sandwich (Aldi), which all have sugar added.

All the breads we tested (except the Aldi, Coles and Woolworths brand gluten-free breads) are ‘low sugar’. This means they contain no more than 5g sugar per 100g, according to the Food Standards Code.

How we test

Products

We test packaged, sliced white breads that are available nationally through at least one of the major supermarket chains. Where there is the option, we choose sandwich sliced. We don’t include fresh-baked bread from in-house bakeries, sourdough or brioche. Price is based on the price of a loaf in Sydney stores (not on special) in July 2019. We tested a total of 30 products, 24 regular breads and six gluten-free.

Tasting

Our experts taste the bread samples ‘blind’ (without knowing the brands) in a randomised order, which is different for each expert. Regular breads and gluten-free breads are tested separately.

Scores

Experts independently judge all breads, scoring each sample for flavour and aroma, texture and appearance. The ����Vlog score is made up of taste 70% (50% flavour, 20% texture, 20% aroma and 10% presentation) and nutrition 30% (based on the Health Star Rating, calculated from the details in the nutrition information panel and converted to a percentage). We recommend products with a ����Vlog score of 75% or more.

Meet our expert taste testers

��

Brigid Treloar has been a freelance food consultant for over 30 years. The author of eight cookbooks, she also contributes to newspapers and magazines, reviews restaurants, and judges cookery and recipe competitions, including the Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) Fine Food Professional Bakery Competition. Brigid has presented specialist cooking classes in Sydney, around Australia and overseas, and often appears on TV and radio. She also advises many of Australia’s food companies on product and recipe development, and provides recipes and cooking information for company websites.

Ian Huntley is a pastry chef by trade and has been in the industry for 35 years. Ian studied confectionery, cake decorating and bread making in the UK before moving to Australia in the mid 1980s. After five years of working in two of Sydney’s top hotels, The InterContinental and The Regent, he started his wholesale patisserie business, supplying desserts and pastries to airlines, department stores, hospitals, restaurants and coffee shops. Today Ian is the chair of judges for the RAS Professional Bakery competition and chief assessor for patisserie for a leading French culinary school.

Michele Walsh has worked in the baking industry for more than 30 years, starting as an apprentice and now working as a tertiary-educated professional in the vocational education and training sector, where she delivers training to apprentices and non-apprentices in retail baking and patisserie. She has more than 15 years’ experience in judging, including the RAS Professional Bakery and WorldSkills trades competitions.

The post What’s the best sliced white bread? appeared first on ����Vlog.

On this page:

• Bread ingredients: What's in your bread?
• Preservatives in bread
• How harmful are additives like 282?
• Shelf life without preservatives
• Labelling and health concerns
• Special claims
• Who owns your bread?

In the early 20th century, bakers experimented with various mechanised techniques to speed up bread-making, but in 1961 the Chorleywood bread process changed everything.��

Invented by UK scientists, the Chorleywood method allows a loaf to go from flour to sliced and packaged in about three-and-a-half hours using high-speed mixers and the addition of extra yeast and dough-improving chemicals.��

Now bread that is soft, springy and consistent takes much less time and costs much less to produce.

But is big-batch bread, with its additives and preservatives and long shelf life, as healthy as traditional bread? And should you choose sourdough, wholegrain or low GI?

Bread ingredients: What’s in your bread?

Look at the ingredients on a bread label and alongside the more recognisable substances you’ll often see a list of mysterious numbers. Some of these additives are what are known as bread and dough “improvers” or “conditioners”.��

They often have more than one function, but generally they’re designed to dramatically increase the rate at which the dough rises (helping breadmakers increase production speeds and lower costs), improve bread texture and taste, and extend shelf life.

Processing ingredients you’ll commonly see are:

• mineral salt 170 (calcium carbonate)��
• ascorbic acid (food acid 300 or treatment agent 300), otherwise known as vitamin C��
• emulsifiers (427e, 481, 471), vegetable gums (412, 461) and amino acid 920 – these speed up dough handling, help sliced bread retain its shape and extend shelf life by reducing the crystallisation of starch that makes the bread go hard (if you put bread in the fridge, the cold temperature increases the rate of crystallisation and the bread goes hard faster).

Only small amounts of these additives are required – usually up to three percent of the bread – and bakers often buy them in a ready-made premix, to which they add water and yeast.��

Most breads, whether from a factory or a small baker, are made from similar premixes – differences generally stem from baking techniques.

Since 2009, it’s been mandatory for breads (except organic ones) to add:

• iodine via iodised salt (for thyroid health)
• folic acid, a form of the B vitamin folate that helps reduce the rate of neural tube defects in infants.

Preservatives in bread

While emulsifiers and other “improvers” are widely accepted as safe, preservatives are more controversial. Introduced in the 1990s as a mould retardant, calcium propionate, or 282, is the best-known preservative of public concern.

Although approved by Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) for use at specified levels, a furore erupted when a study by food additive activist Sue Dengate, published in the in 2002, showed 282 to be associated with irritability, restlessness, inattention and sleep disturbance in children.

In response to consumer concern, most breadmakers removed 282 from many of their breads, although it’s still often used in other products such as crumpets, muffins, Turkish bread and pizza bases. It’s also widely found in wraps.��

With 282 a dirty word for concerned consumers, some breadmakers get around the problem by using its close relative, propionic acid (280), instead.

How harmful are additives like 282?

The internet is awash with warnings of the dangers of 282 and other food additives, pointing to a cumulative cocktail in the body which can lead to a host of symptoms from migraine and tiredness to rashes, gastro-intestinal upsets and depression.

Propionates (280–283) are on the list of food additives that can be associated with food intolerance in the . On her Food Intolerance Network website, Dengate argues that children’s behaviour and learning is more affected than authorities will admit, citing stories from parents who noticed a behavioural improvement when 282 was removed from their child’s diet.

But Dr Rob Loblay, director of the allergy unit at Sydney’s RPA Hospital, argues that about five percent of the general population is sensitive to one or more food additives, whether artificial or natural, and considers the push to ban additives “overblown”.

“The issue is very complicated,” says Vijay Jayasena, professor of food science and technology at Western Australia’s Curtin University. “The first thing people should know is that not all preservatives are artificial or may cause harm, and many are useful for food safety.”

Jayasena says most people won’t be affected by 282, while for others it’s about dosage. “It’s hard to say at what level 282 may cause a reaction in each individual, because people can have reactions to so many things and at different levels. However, if you’re worried about them you should avoid them.”

Anti-additive campaigners argue that until additives are proved safe, FSANZ should use the precautionary principle where suspect additives are substituted with others that don’t raise health concerns.

If you’re worried about preservatives, Jayasena says breads baked daily in-store generally have few, if any, preservatives, because any bread not sold is usually thrown out at the end of the day. Check the ingredient labels, or ask the baker what preservatives they use.

Shelf life without preservatives

Packaged sliced bread can be 24 hours old by the time it arrives at the shops because it’s baked the day before and then transported.��

Consumers will have no idea how old the bread is, because the best-before tag indicates when it should be eaten by, rather than when it was baked.��

Bakers we spoke to agree the lifespan of a fresh loaf should be about two or three days. But we found packaged breads last much longer than fresh-baked breads.

So how do packaged bread companies make their bread last mould-free so long without artificial preservatives?��

Manufacturers claim advances in processing methods help, as does packaging that limits the flow of moisture, oxygen and carbon dioxide.

Artificial preservatives may also be replaced with natural ones. As an example, mould can be kept at bay by citric acid (330), lactic acid (270) and fumaric acid (297). Other preservatives are vegetable gums, vinegar (acetic acid 260) and sodium.

Labelling and health concerns

Questions have been raised about a loophole in labelling laws that allows manufacturers to avoid listing unpopular ingredients such as 282 or 223. In the , food processing aids don’t have to be listed as ingredients. According to FSANZ, it’s very unusual for there to be anything other than minimal residues of these processing aids in foods.

As a sulphite, 223 is not permitted for use as a preservative in bread. It is, however, permitted for use as a processing agent – and so it can be used and not listed.

If 282 is used as a preservative, it must be listed, but if the manufacturer deems it a processing aid, it does not. So it’s essentially up to manufacturers to “apply good manufacturing practice”.

Enzymes such as alpha-amylase are also classed as processing aids and so don’t have to be listed. Used in most breads in a dried, powdered form, they artificially help speed up the fermenting process that would normally occur when traditional dough is left to rise.

Concerns have been raised that enzymes are still allergenic, even after baking. Studies have found workers exposed to airborne particles of alpha-amylase can become susceptible to “baker’s asthma”. But FSANZ argues most of the allergenic effect of alpha-amylase is destroyed during cooking, pointing to a World Health Organization/UN Food and Agriculture Organization expert committee which found no adverse effect from seven grams of the enzyme per kilogram of body weight per day.

Special claims

Wholegrain

Pre-2005, wholegrain food was defined by FSANZ as “unmilled products of a single cereal or mixture of cereals”. However, as a result of petitioning from the cereal processing industry, the definition was changed to a food that uses every part of the grain. This means grains can be processed and separated into three constituent parts (bran, germ and endosperm) but a food can still be classified as wholegrain as long as the three parts are added back into the food in the same proportions as the original unmilled grain. Multigrain breads are usually made from white flour with added whole grains.

Sourdough

Sourdough is traditionally made using a “starter”, where wheat and water ferment to create a culture that gives the sour taste. This requires specific temperatures to survive so commercial bakeries often replace it with dried powdered yeast, which adds colour and smell as well as the sour taste but is not considered authentic by connoisseurs. There is no regulation defining sourdough, so the only way to know if it is authentic is to ask the baker.

Source of fibre

As a general rule of thumb, bread with at least 2g of dietary fibre per serve is a “source” of fibre, bread with at least 4g of dietary fibre per serve is a “good source” of fibre, and with at least 7g of dietary fibre per serve is an “excellent source” (Food Standard 1.2.7).��

White bread labelled “high fibre” often contains Hi-maize, which is a corn-based, resistant starch that passes undigested into the small intestine, where it can encourage the growth of beneficial bacteria.

Omega-3s��

There are two types of omega-3 fats – those from plants (mainly ALA) and those from fish (mainly EPA and DHA). There’s now very good evidence that omega-3 fats from fish reduce your risk of heart disease and probably provide many other health benefits as well. But you don’t get the same benefits from ALA from plant sources, such as linseed. This fat may also help prevent heart disease, but you’d need more of it to get some benefit – more than you’d get from a serving of multigrain bread containing linseed.

Phytoestrogens

Phytoestrogens in some plants, such as soy and linseed, mimic the hormone oestrogen. They supposedly relieve menopause symptoms and protect against heart disease and some cancers, including breast cancer. In reality, there’s no consistent evidence that soy products reduce hot flushes, and no evidence at all that linseed relieves menopausal symptoms. High consumption of soy foods may lower the risk of breast and prostate cancers, but only by a little. For the small amount you’d get from a serving of multigrain bread there’s little point in buying soy and linseed over other grainy breads unless you prefer the taste.

Glycaemic index (GI)

GI is a measure of how carbohydrates affect your blood glucose levels. If there’s a rush of glucose into the bloodstream followed by a quick fall, the food is higher in the GI scale. If it gives a slower, gentler rise and fall in blood glucose, the GI is lower. Diabetics should consider GI, but for other people research hasn’t yet shown significant benefits – although low-GI foods may aid weight control. Manufacturers don’t always make a GI claim on the label, but products with a higher wholegrain content tend to have a lower GI because the grains take longer to digest

Who owns your bread?

The bread industry (like our supermarkets) is dominated by a duopoly. You may see many brands, but at least two-thirds of all our bread comes from two big corporations – George Weston Foods and Goodman Fielder.

George Weston Foods products

• Tip Top
• Abbott’s Village Bakery
• Burgen
• Golden
• Bagel House
• Bazaar

Goodman Fielder products

• Country Life
• Helga’s
• La Famiglia
• Lawson’s
• Mighty Soft
• Molenberg
• Wonder White

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