A Trip To The Franz Bakery

I usually bake our bread from scratch.  This summer, with the warm weather we've been having I hesitate to use the oven and heat up the house.  On top of that I have been a very busy girl lately.  So trying find enough time to bake bread, or anything, for that matter, has taken a backseat.

A couple weeks ago my oldest and I went to the Franz Bakery to check it out.  I had stopped at the store to buy bread one day and was amazed as I read the labels to see how much crap they put in their loaves of supposedly "healthy" bread.  Lots of preservatives, sugar, corn syrup and things I could not even begin to pronounce.

I looked up one of the ingredients listed on several loaves - calcium peroxide.  I hadn't seen it before and wanted to know what it was.  It turns out is a bleaching agent used for flour. but its original purpose is fertilizer.  I thought it strange too that this would even be necessary since the loaves were whole wheat.

One of the loaves I picked up however did not have any unusual crap in it but it was almost $3 a loaf.  I like Franz products but rarely buy them because they are so expensive in the store.  I bought it, but I also decided it was time to check out the bakery this loaf had come from and see if a few minutes spent there would pay off.  It did.

Their bread purchased direct at the bakery is half the price of the store.  I had hoped that would be the case.  But that is only half of the store.  The other half is the day old bakery which had a ton of markdown items and all very fresh.

I decided to stock up and for under $7 we left with enough bread and hamburger buns to see us through the summer plus a box of donuts.  My daughter loves donuts.  They were giving away free pastries too!  We happily accepted a package of cheese danishes.

Free pastries are always appreciated

The bread is really good and I will probably go back in the fall and stock up again.  Having some extra loaves in the freezer when I don't have time to bake will be nice for us when school starts back up and we find ourselves super busy again with all of the girl's activities.

Do you shop at any bakeries or bread outlets?