Andy M.
Certified Pretend Chef
It's a matter of trial and error. Our supermarket's in house brand has mixed quality. The OJ is good the frozen veggies and shredded cheeses not good.
I don't think the fact that something is a "store brand" says anything about the quality one way or another. One of our local grocery chains has a store brand organic pizza that knocks the socks off of many of the so-called brand names. On the other hand, their bread is just plain awful.
I buy products that I like. It may be a store brand, or it may not.
My neighbor upstairs worked for Continental Baking Company. They were the company that made Wonder Bread and all the other brands that were part of their contract. After they did their run for Wonder Bread, they stopped the line long enough to changed the wrappers to house brands that they were doing. then started up the line again. Same bread, different wrappers. They made the house brand for almost every large chain in this area.
We used to have Hood Milk. Same thing. When the run for their own brand was fulfilled, they just changed containers. I did a temp data entry job for Hood. It was for the house brand billing.
It all depends on trial and error over the years. Like stated before, green beans and corn, I buy name brand. For baking, since I always sift my dry ingredients after I measure them, I don't find a problem with house brand. I do know that for cakes, I do not care for KA. Too much gluten. Cakes are not as light and don't rise as high. I always buy cane sugar. House brand again. Powdered sugar and light brown, house brand. I do buy Domino dark brand. It is lighter in color and has a lighter sweeter taste than the house brand. I think the extra molasses makes the house brand have somewhat of a bitter taste. I buy Cabot's Butter. It is made in Vermont and is so much fresher than LOL. The closest LOL plant to New England is located in New Jersey. We get Cabots delivered every day in Mass. and other N.E. states.
I totally agree about King Arthur AP Flour for cakes - too much gluten. I've never tried any store brands - I use Gold Medal Unbleached.
This is why there are different flours. Bread flour makes the best bread, cake flour makes the best cake and AP flour is a compromise that gives OK results for both.
...but I dislike most commercial cake flours - too much bleach for one thing, which I can taste and smell, and I'm not wild about the resulting texture.
I don't use bleached flours either. Consider this: Unbleached Cake Flour Blend
or this: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/king-arthur-queen-guinevere-cake-flour-3-lb
I believe that the queen guinevere is a bleached flour. They admit that their unbleached will give different results, because the bleaching actually improves cake flour. It's great that they developed the unbleached option.
When I was traveling through the northwest there was a butter I absolutely loved. It was on every table in every restaurant, so it must be pretty common. Little squares wrapped in foil (I think gold -- but it's been 15 years or so). It was delicious. I wonder what the brand was (just curiousity, I buy local, after all, I'm in dairy country). If I lived in Oregon/Washington (and I think even northernmost California) I would only buy that one brand. And I'm not a huge butter person.
I think maybe the butter Claire is describing could be Darigold it's a big time Washington State brand
We like Tillamook too, but it hasn't been available as long.
Looked for a photo, because I remember those little gold foil packets too! I could only find the little plastic cups with gold foil tops ( because we really need to use more plastic sheesh!). Anyway I am still sure it's Darigold it's just cream and salt. We have contented cows out here so maybe that's what makes it taste so good. Can't say as I have ever had any bad tasting butter yum