December 26, 2015 - 9:34pm
Is it better to buy already baked bread or frozen dough?
Is the taste much different or better if you buy frozen dough and proof and bake it or already baked bread and freeze it? I don't have a special bread oven. If you freeze bread does it diminish it's taste over time?
Thank you!
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... to bake bread. Any oven will do.
I can't answer your questions directly about taste and freezing, other than most bread freezes very well.
However, I do wonder about the expense of buying frozen dough and the time plus hassle of thawing it compared to the cost-saving and ease of making your own dough. Why not try the latter? Don't be intimidated by the sometimes complex recipes and arcane arguments that appear on TFL. Bread-making is simple. It has, after all, gone along pretty much unchanged for thousands of years. And your own bread always tastes good.
...but would add that learning to bake bread is incredibly easy if you have someone to show you how the dough should look and feel at every stage. Otherwise, it's easy to struggle for a long time while turning out only marginally edible loaves, at best, and not being able to figure out why it's going wrong. I have that T-shirt.
But to answer your question: it's better to buy good, ready-baked bread from a baker who makes real bread and freeze it than to buy par-baked loaves and tan them at home. Freezing and thawing the bread will have the same effect as a day's staling but if you start off with good bread it'll knock the spots off the par-baked stuff, even when it's several days old.
What part of the world do you live in? Maybe someone here will be able to point you at a real baker in your area for you to use until you track down a bread-making course.
[Later] Just spotted that you've already asked a bread-making question so I'm puzzled as to why you're also asking about buying par-baked loaves.