But as everyone knows homemade bread becomes stale fast. How do you stop them from becoming stale?
For awhile we used ziplock bags. But plastic encourages mold and the fruit breads especially would go bad quickly.
So enter our homemade bread bag.
I took some ripstock nylon and layered it with muslin and a decorative cotton. The addition of velcro and we had a wonderful sealed bag!
The three layers help keep the bread fresh, but also to "breathe" to discourage mold. It works great on it's own, but even better when paired with a bread box.
However, when bread does go stale, don't throw it out! Stale bread is great for meatloaf, making your own breadcrumbs,or simply refresh them on the oven, just wrap your bread in a wet paper bag or towel and place in a preheated 300 degree oven. In about ten minutes the steam will soften your bread.
I encourage everyone to try a natural fabric bag. It's been great and was super easy to make. In fact, I'll post a tutorial soon.
Happy bread eating!!
This post is linked up with Frugally Sustainable Ways.
6 comments:
Yes, please do post a tutorial! I make our family's weekly bread due to food allergies in our son. I'm always using ziploc but I'd love something more natural. And do you ever freeze your loaves? Any tips/ideas/pointers on that?
Very cute! But please be careful with ripstock nylon, it can be treated with chemicals that can leech into your bread. I'm not sure what to recommend in regards to fabric, but if it isn't labeled "food safe" I would be extremely careful.... but otherwise it is a great idea!
The ripstop I use is not coated. It gets it's waterproofing from the weave of nylon and cotton. From what I have read it is food safe, however, if you are worried I would recommend homemade oilcloth. You can coat a cotton or canvas with beeswax or linseed oil. Hope that helps!
I do freeze my bread. But used freezer bags to eliminate freezer burn etc. I then let it thaw in my bread bag. However I have heard of others using layers of nylon and cotton to freeze in, I would just recommend more layering than three to keep the freezer from drying out your bread. I'll post a tutorial soon. Thanks for stopping by! :)
Kate - that is great, when I was looking for materials to use with our food I had no luck finding anything that was safe. I ended up using unbleached muslin, but it dried the bread out. Where did you find your ripstop? I do like the idea of homemade oilcloth! Thanks!!!! I'm sorry if my original comment sounded panicky, but I have seen too often people making, selling, and using materials with food that definitely had chemicals on them and were unsafe for food and I don't want anyone to get sick :-)
I buy a lot of my fabric from a local specialty store and the rest comes from Hancock's. Both will special order fabric and are really well stocked/informed. I've been to ones though that are not very helpful..you may be in that situation. I've never waterproofed my own fabric, but I've seen lots of tutorials online. If you are worried in any way- that's the route I would go. That way you can use an untreated fabric and know exactly what has been done. There is a lot to say about having complete control. :)
Post a Comment