Pretty much all standard American supermarket bread IS very sweet with loads of sugar but I suspect those saying it isn’t sweet just have a different taste and like super sweet foods.
They mean it has sugar in it, way way more sugar than is necessary to catalyze yeast.
I grew up in the USA and have never even as a child been able to eat American bread. Not just too sweet but gummy and fake, even better quality breads.
In the 1980’s I worked in a small bakery (the Tassajara Bakery in San Francisco, a very hip bakery indeed), and we subscribed to the trade journal, called something like Baking Today. Besides baking machinery, the other main category of advertisers were manufacturers of various kinds of additives – fluffers, stretchers, preservatives – all chemicals to make bread etc. cheaper to make and more uniform.
I pretty much only can eat whole grain artisan sourdough (very rare in most parts of the US), or my own bread.
That’s the ONLY thing I like about American sandwich bread. That nice thick even crust you can get when you toast it.
Cornbread is not sweet, but you butter it and dip in in maple syrup which solves that problem.
Yes, even if you’re eating it with chile
European who’s lived in the US: I say it’s sweet because it tastes of sugar. Simple as.
Bread I’m used to - and make - has all the sugars taken up by the yeast and is savory, even a bit salty*.
*Edit: In fact they’re nearly always slightly salty. You can get unsalted sciapo bread in Italy and it’s gross, like wood pulp.
I’m not Kolak but from the description our recipes are nearly identical if not spot-on. And since Kolak didn’t reply, I’ll give you mine:
2 cups corn meal
– (should be designated stone ground or water ground; NOT self-rising. NOT Quaker brand in the round cylindrical container, which is grainy pebbly stuff that creates cement instead of cornbread. If you want a brand mention, Indian Head is good stuff)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 cups buttermilk
1 egg
4 tbsp vegetable oil
– (e.g., safflower, grapeseed, generic wesson oil, whatever)
Preheat oven to 400° F. Err on the high side. I have a digital oven control and set it to 405°
Grease a pan. Unlike Kolak, I use a Pyrex 9" baking pan by preference but cast iron has a long and respected history. Don’t use teflon but metal baking pans are OK although in my experience they tend to stick worse than the glass baking pan or cast iron frying pan. For the greasing I prefer butter. I had a grandma who always used bacon fat. My own mom used Crisco. Butter gives a browner crust that’s slightly harder, which I prefer.
Mix the first 3 ingredients evenly into a large mixing bowl. I use a sifter, not because corn meal needs sifting (doesn’t) but because it’s a good tool for distributing your baking soda.
Only add the liquid ingredients when the stove is up to temp. Stir them all together but don’t be overly ambitious about getting a completely smooth batter. Just get the dry ingredients mixed into the wet to the point that your spoon stops uncovering puffs of unmixed dry. (The baking soda and buttermlik are already combining chemically; you want this mix into the oven pretty quickly) Then pour into your pan and slide it into the oven.
Bake 50 minutes.
Recommended: Place a dinner plate on the countertop and suspend a couple of table knives across the bottom — this lifts the cornbread up off the surface when you take it out so that it doesn’t sweat onto the bottom.
When your 50 minute timer beeps, pull pan out and upend it over the dinner plate and it should pop right out effortlessly. If not, carefully stick a table knife down along the edges and work your way around the outside, which should be sufficient to coax it loose. (more likely if you’re using a metal baking pan; cast iron or glass generally don’t misbehave)
Eat.
For comparison’s sake, here’s my (not sweet) cornbread recipe.
Preheat oven to 425. Put 1 tablespoon bacon grease or vegetable oil into an 8-inch cast-iron skillet (perfectly fine to substitute stainless steel or even non-stick, if you prefer) and place in the oven to preheat.
1 cup white cornmeal
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp salt
(I add 1/2 tsp of black pepper because I like it. Not traditional. You could also sub 1 tsp Cajun seasoning for the salt AND pepper)
Whisk together in a mixing bowl.
1 large egg
2/3 cup buttermilk
Beat together. I do it in the measuring glass I’ve poured the milk into.
Scrape the wet into the dry with a rubber spatula and beat together. Don’t overmix.
Take the pan out and scrape the batter into it. I should sizzle. Put the pan back into the oven and bake 20 minutes. It should be golden and beautiful. Invert the pan and drop the cornbread out onto a plate. May need some coaxing if you used cast iron; with nonstick it should slip right out.
Well, in my supermarket, we get a lot of sourdough, which is certainly not sweet.