Well, thanks for your input, alas I must retaliate, of course, wouldn't be me otherwise, would it? LOL
The whole idea is for food to taste like it used to when it was primarily homemade, rather then all the standardised tastes you are usually presented with today. Sadly, this does very much apply to places like McDonald's. From what I hear, wherever you go, it is supposed to be the same, a thought I find seriously distressing. I have baked our own bread for more then 20 years now and the thing we like best about it, is all the minute differences between every loaf ever baked. Even the weather has a magical influence on how it turns out but at the end of the day, it has always been delicious.
Interesting you mention the 'Sell by' date. Now, I may have to possibly rephrase what I wrote above, should it turn out to have a different meaning in the USA, from what it refers to in the UK. Didn't think of that, so much appreciated for raising this issue. I will look into this tomorrow on the FDA's pages as soon as I am back from the vets. Don't want to start spreading rumours.
I should have thought of that before really, especially since I have been exchanging recipes with JoBleau for a couple of years now and we have both come across a large number of words and phrases that turned out to have a completely different meaning. Only teaches you to not take anything for granted.
When it comes to your icing, you may find that the commercial varieties are usually made with ghee, which is clarified butter fat or it uses vegetable fats, which in 95% of all cases refers to it being made from palm oil. Now that is one to either avoid or at least only purchased if it comes from Rainforest certified plantations, which can at least lay some claim to being sustainable, allthough certification usually is only ever applied for once the rainforest has already been cleared. 0:1 to the Orangutans you might say, they and anything else living in those vital areas are usually the big losers.
Yes, if people be a little more aware of how our eating habits influcences our planet, maybe at least some would change their ways, at least a little anyway.
As for your throwing it all in a bowl and swishing it round, you might find that most often the secret isn't much of a secret really. It is in the time spent mixing the ingredients. This really applies to bread. People underestimate how long kneading a dough for 10-20 minutes really is. Most of them will only ever do it for say 3 minutes and then be surprised that the loaf is nowhere near as light and fluffy as the bread in from the store, plus it helps if you have a proper steam oven, which is what the industry uses. At the end of the day it all boils down to kneading and how much steam you manage to inject into your oven. JoBleau had a brilliant idea to achieve the latter without the horrendous expense of buying a steam oven but I won't give his secret away, that'll be up to him to share.
If you have any information on the US sell by date, please feel free to post it here or send me a pm, I am always interested in learning something new when it comes to this.
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