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STRANGE CRUMBS | EPISODE 5: THE WHITE BREAD SCANDAL 🍞

Britain’s beautiful white bread had a very dirty secret.

For centuries, white bread was a symbol of wealth and refinement. But as demand grew, some unscrupulous bakers found a rather questionable way to make cheaper, inferior flour look expensive.

Their secret ingredient? Alum. A chemical additive used to make bread appear whiter and more desirable.

In today's Strange Crumb, we're heading back to Britain’s bread adulteration scandals to explore food fraud, Victorian anxieties about what was lurking in the nation's loaves, and the early fight for food safety regulation.

Turns out, worrying about what's in our food is nothing new!

Welcome back to Strange Crumbs, my little series exploring the strange, macabre and occasionally ridiculous history of food.

❤️ A little about Baking Perfect

Baking Perfect is a Brown Butter Bakes podcast hosted by Ruby, a home baker and bakery owner based in Yorkshire, England.

From baking science and recipe development to the darker corners of culinary history, starting and running a home bakery, and all the wonderfully messy bits in between, Baking Perfect explores food from every angle, one curious story at a time.

Because I don’t believe there’s such a thing as the perfect baker, the perfect recipe or the perfect business. But I do think there’s an awful lot of joy to be found in trying to get better.

🍪 Find Brown Butter Bakes

Website & bakery shop:

https://www.brownbutterbakes.uk

Shop my postal bakes, home bakery business tools, digital guides and resources. The bakery restocks every Sunday at 10am!

Substack — Brown Butter Bakes:

https://brownbutterbakes.substack.com

Longer reads, recipes, baking science experiments, recipe development, behind-the-scenes stories and extra resources for paid subscribers.

Instagram — @brownbutterbake:

https://www.instagram.com/brownbutterbake/

Bakery life, recipes, new bakes and behind-the-scenes updates.

TikTok — @brownbutterbakesleeds:

https://www.tiktok.com/@brownbutterbakesleeds

Baking science, ingredient experiments, baking tips and honest chats about running a home bakery.

YouTube — Brown Butter Bakes

Watch Baking Science Explained, my recipe experiments, Baking Perfect series and longer baking videos.

Podcast — Baking Perfect:

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/baking-perfect-a-brown-butter-bakes-podcast/id6820645425

Listen to more episodes covering baking science, food history and starting a home bakery.

⸻

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider following the podcast, leaving a rating or sharing it with another curious baker. It helps more people find our little corner of the baking world.

And if you’ve got a baking science question you’d love me to investigate, come and say hello over on Instagram or TikTok.

Thanks so much for listening, angel.

Love, Ruby x