Bread and sweetbread

As our regular reader will know, I like bread almost as much as beer (maybe it's because they both use yeast and grains?).

Anyway, my sister recently sent me a book for my birthday, namely "The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Making Classic Breads with the Cutting-edge Techniques of a Bread Master" by Peter Reinhart. It's a good book (but not as good as Dan Lepard's "The Handmade Loaf" - buy it now!!).

What amazed me though was how many of the recipes are sweetened, Something as simple as a wholemeal loaf had sugar, powdered milk, honey, cans of coca-cola (actually not true that last one). Peter classifies loves into enriched, naturally leavened, etc. groupings and a rough scan suggests that half the loaves are enriched rather than un-enriched (nonriched? enpoored?). Can't say I've spent that much time in the US but when I mentioned this to my parents, recently returned from the Big Poo, they agreed. Ordinary supermarket cut-loaf (yuck) made into a savoury sandwich tasted like it was spread with jam, or honey or sugar syrup.

There appears to be a movement to artisan, traditional breads in the US but it would appear from Peter Reinhart's book that even this isn't immune to the US mentatilty of sugar-in-everything.