This year Aldi didn’t bring back their usual bread mix suspects. It was a touch disappointing considering I love the original two. They were rosemary thyme and garlic as well as a sundried tomato and basil, you can read about those here. Since the formula on these was really good I have high expectations for the new formula.
Replacing those two savoury bread mixes are four different varieties. There are two sweet and two savoury options. The sweet options are, banana and gingerbread loaf and the two savoury options are tiger bread and multi-seed. They will cost you $2.99 a pack and will be on sale until sold out. If we ask really nicely, maybe Aldi might consider bringing them into their permanent range.
Banana Bread
I’ll start with the banana bread. There are no major allergens listed on the box and no may contain statement. The box is labelled wheat free, soy free, peanut and tree nut free. If you have additional allergies this contains rice flour, maize starch, tapioca starch and iodised salt. To create the bread you’ll need some additional ingredients. These include 1 ripe banana, some water, vegetable oil and 2 eggs. The instructions recommend an electric mixer but I whisked this by hand and it still ended up nice and smooth. If you are whisking by hand I recommend sifting in a little of the bread mix at a time.
For my banana bread, I used two ripe bananas instead of one. Furthermore, I baked it in the oven for the recommended 55 minutes. This did result in a slightly dark top but that could be due to my oven. Overall we were a bit disappointed with the banana bread. It had a strong banana aroma but it didn’t match up to that in terms of flavour. There was a subtle banana flavour through the bread but it was quite bland. As mentioned I even used two mashed ripe bananas instead of one. Despite the lack of banana flavour, the texture was beautiful. It was light, moist and airy the perfect consistency. If it had more banana flavour it would have been wonderful. I might buy another one to try adding more banana.
Ginger Bread Loaf
The gingerbread loaf is the second sweet option. Again there are no major allergens listed on the box and no may contain statement. This box is also labelled wheat free, soy free, peanut and tree nut free. For additional allergies again this has rice flour, tapioca starch, maize starch and a lot of ginger. For this loaf, you’ll only require some water, vegetable oil and three eggs. Again I whisked this one by hand, the little clumps of crystalized ginger did make it hard to tell if the mixture was smooth though.
Full disclosure, I am not a fan of overpowering ginger flavours. So I was prepared not to like this bread. It has a really strong ginger scent. The bread has crystalized ginger throughout it and when you bite down on one of those the ginger flavour is definitely overwhelming. Otherwise, it has a spicy ginger tang throughout it. It isn’t something I’d buy again but as mentioned above I really am not a fan of crystallized ginger. The bread had a lovely texture and mouthfeel though. So if you like a strong ginger flavour then this will be a hit.
Tiger Bread
Continuing the trend the Tiger Bread is also labelled wheat free, soy free, peanut and tree nut free. It lists no major allergens and no may contain statement. The ingredients do list, maize starch, rice flour, tapioca starch, rice bran and psyllium husk. To bake this loaf you’ll only need water and vegetable oil which is pretty simple. I decided to try this mixture in my bread mixer instead of the oven. To work the mix this way, I gently mixed the mixture together in a bowl then added it to the bread machine. Once it had gone through the mixing cycle, I added the sprinkling of bread mix to the top as directed by the packet and wet it before the bake cycle.
The tiger bread had the same light texture that I have come to expect from the Aldi bread mixes, however, it felt a little underseasoned. Not a big issue if you are going to top it with other flavours. There was also a touch of an odd flavour, I can’t exactly put my finger on what it was but there was a flavour I wasn’t a fan of. It’s an alright bread and I have heard others say they love it but for me, it’s a bit of a miss.
Multi-Seed Bread
Finally, we have the Multi-Seed Bread. This box is also labelled wheat free, soy free, peanut and tree nut free. Like the other bread mixes this one also doesn’t list any major allergens and has no may contain statement. It does include rice flour, maize starch, tapioca starch, rice bran and psyllium husk in the ingredients. The seeds included in the mix are; sunflower kernels, linseeds and poppy seeds. Again this savoury loaf will only need vegetable oil and water to create it.
Despite baking this in the oven for an extra 30 minutes it still had a slightly underbaked flavour. I’m not sure if this will be typical but that was my experience following the packet instructions. This bread was also more fragile than the others. I believe this was because of all the seeds, when I cut it the bread crumbled and tore slightly. The inside was light and fluffy like the others. Again it is a decent bread but nothing special that I’ll be reaching for more than once. I really miss those flavours that they had in previous years.
That’s it for the bread mixes this year. Hopefully, these make their way back to the shelves before the next sale. If you want to know what else you can pick up in this sale check out the 2018 Aldi Sale overview article. I have already reviewed the biscuits from this year and the Aldi Cup of Noodles. You can also vote for what product you want me to review next over on facebook.
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Until Next Time;
Ashlee; The Aussie Coeliac.
