Polly's Plastic Lakeland Bags...

My Mum is great. She's kind, generous, funny, warm, a good cook, a great babysitter, Mum, Granny, friend, etc. Sometimes however, she can be somewhat over enthusiastic about certain things and when presented with the result of this enthusiasm, I don't always know quite how to react.

One of the latest objects of this enthusiasm is a simple storage device called the Bread Bag produced by Lakeland Plastics. Little more than a white cotton draw string bag which is lined with plastic, this item received little more than a cursory glance. Horror of horrors, she'd actually bought four of the blessed things and presented me with two of them, one medium and one large sized.

In the same breath I was informed that she no longer needed the fancy stoneware bread crock that I'd bought her once upon a time and that I could have it for whatever I decided to do with it. Fair enough, I thought, as we'd both had similar problems with the storage of bread in said article - ie the bread went mouldy within a couple of days occupation. Currently my bread crock holds enormous quantities of rice, keeps it dry, pest free and easily accessible. To be honest, it's a godsend!

So, without more adieu, I decided there and then that the newer, slightly larger stoneware bread crock would make a fantastic place in which to store root vegetables like spuds. These too have proved problematic, in that they're inclined to sprout at the slightest opportunity, so far the bread crock seems to have this particular issue under control.

So what of the plastic lined cotton bag? Well, eventually I decided to try it out. I did so somewhat relunctantly, as I truly didn't have any faith in the things but didn't want to upset my Mum. Rather than be accused of spurning her generosity I stuffed a Tiger Loaf from Tesco's into it and hoped for the best, nearly one week later it remained soft and fluffy, no evidence of age to make it taste stale and certainly there was no sign of mould. I was surprised, no actually I was shocked!

My next experiment was a soda bread cake. As delicious as it was, I deliberated and decided that out of sight was indeed a case of out of mind. Wholewheat soda bread is delicious, especially with a layer of butter upon it and reeks havoc on any healthy eating plan, so it had to be vanished - or else face the consequences. Where better to stuff it than into Lakeland's bread bag, whereupon it languished for the best part of a week before being rediscovered. Aw, so what? Well, normally soda bread lasts no more than 24 hours before it becomes stale and unpalatably dry but not in this case. I was actually amazed this time...

Over the past few weeks I have stuffed various different bread products into my Lakeland Bread Bags ranging from soda bread to pitta bread, tiger bread to donuts and each one has remained soft and fresh for inordinate lengths of time. I don't know how they stay fresh, they just do and whoever invented this solution to an age old problem needs a pat on the back and a round of applause.

My recommendation would be for anyone who likes their bread, especially if they live alone or as part of a small family, is to go out and try the Lakeland Bread Bag for yourselves. It works for me and hopefully it'll work for you!

Pollys Take On Dough

In George's latest post she reviews the diabolical state of English bread. I'm not sure that we've quite caught up with it over here in Ireland; as it is possible to purchase vast quantities of stoneground bread alongside your ordinary batch loaf. Even the smallest corner shop sells some form of wholesome bread, often made by hand in a small bakery nearby.

Despite this; I was startled by the following quote:

“In Ireland as a whole, we have 250 small bakeries for a population of five million. In Germany, for 82.5 million people, they have 20,000.”

Also in Tullamore is Donoghue's craft bakery; also recently quoted in Bakeryinfo.co.uk:

"there’s definitely a market for craft breads in Ireland. He’s (Cathal O'Donoghue) a third-generation baker and, since he took over what was McGlinchey’s Bakery in Tullamore 17 years ago, he has grown turnover considerably. “We’ve expanded from IR£50,000 turnover a year to our present level of over E1m, with 30 on the staff,” he says.

But even though O’Donohue’s product range is very modern, one of its popular lines is still the old-fashioned traditional batch loaf.

He also says that, while the artisan bakery group has made a lot of progress since its launch, it needs a facilitator to drive it forwards. “If we all get in the one boat, we will go faster,” he explains. With the marketing plans about to be put in place, he believes that what the group really needs is good publicity – preferably on television – to sell the whole idea to the public."

Recently I was lucky enough to meet Mr O'Donoghue; at one of my Thursday morning breakfast meetings. Being an expert in both bakery and marketing he'd kindly brought along some samples of their staple Irish Brown Soda Bread, to quote one of our chat show hosts "one for every body in the audience!"

Unfortunately this turned out not to be so. On that morning we had a particularly busy meeting and were overwhelmed with visitors and new members, totalling some forty plus. Cathal had only banked on twenty four! Not to be outdone, he immediately sent word back to base and ordered a second tray, this time a Polish Malt Bread with Oats.

Well, I was one of the lucky ones. Being a straggler and the last to get breakfast can have its advantages, in this case I was able to snag three loaves - no it wasn't greed that motivated me, honest! By this time most of our members had departed leaving a sizeable quantity of forgotten dough on the table at the back of the restaurant.

This incident was a perfect example of my "waste not, want not"philosophy, resulting in perfectly toasted malt bread with lashings of butter in two households the following morning - I took one for my Mum as well. LB preferred his au-naturel with a thick layer of creamy Irish Butter. Sadly there are no pictures to illustrate this lovely discovery, but one thing is certain; next time we'll be buying it!