Tested: this is the tastiest (and the worst) garlic baguette from the supermarket
Pavlov’s dog started drooling when he heard a bell, because he knew food would come afterwards. We get that same Pavlovian reaction when we smell one of those ridiculously cheap garlic baguettes: HUNGER! No matter how many you’ve eaten, hungover on the sofa, trying to chase away the hangover, they remain delicious. Which supermarket sells the best one? And which scores the worst? We put them to the test – hangover-free.
Everyone in the editorial team has a soft spot for those garlic baguettes. You buy them for a few cents and they give you an instant feeling of happiness: a warm baguette with melting garlic butter. The downside: afterwards, that appalling taste in your mouth cannot be banished with any amount of mints, so make sure you share your garlic baguette with housemates or a loved one to avoid the misery of dragon breath.
Longer in the oven
We test seven garlic or herb baguettes from the supermarket, all own-brand products. Prices range from €0.89 for Dirk’s baguette to €1.55 for Albert Heijn’s fancy garlic bread. Remarkably, the baguettes are all the same size and weight, yet the recommended oven times and temperatures vary. Does it matter? Anyone who has ever baked one of these baguettes knows that they need to stay in the oven longer than the packaging says anyway, and that the oven can be pretty hot to get a nice colour on the bottom. We baked them all at 190 degrees, and they definitely needed 13 minutes (and with some of the baguettes, we thought: a little longer wouldn’t have hurt).
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- Aldi, 0,50 euro. Mooie nummer twee. Erg vettig, maar de knoflook geur- en smaak is fantastisch. Opmerking: mag zelfs na 15 minuten bakken nog wel wat langer in de oven.
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- Vomar, 1,49 euro. Ook zonder knoflook een lekker stokbroodje. Goed gevuld, tot het kontje, maar de smaak is een beetje flauw.
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- Dirk, 0,89 euro. Lekker klef, veel knoflooksmaak. ‘Hier blijf je van eten.’ De winnaar!
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- Lidl, 0,59 euro. Vettig, maar op een prettige manier. Mag wel wat zout bij, want hij is ook een beetje flauw.
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- Jumbo, 1,49 euro. Veel boter, voor sommige proevers té. ‘De boter druipt eruit, deze kun je niet eten voor de televisie.’
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- AH, 1,55 euro. ‘Dit is niet het stokbrood met kruidenboter zoals je het bedenkt als je brak bent.’ Absolute verliezer van de test.
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- Plus, 1,35 euro. Rare smaak, weinig kruiden of knoflook te proeven. Geen hoogvlieger.
Brown and not tasty
The biggest loser in our test is the most expensive baguette, from Albert Heijn. ‘The packaging doesn’t look appetising either,’ says Rick. ‘A bit brown, and not appealing.’ We taste it, and it doesn’t exactly win anyone over. ‘Bland, few herbs, little garlic,’ Louise more or less sums it up. When the tasters hear that this baguette costs over a euro more than the cheapest one in the test, their mouths fall wide open. ‘No better than the other baguettes; this really is the biggest loser.’
Bland
Plus doesn’t score very well either. Little herb butter, a strange aftertaste, bland: nobody is happy with this one. Jumbo’s baguette is dripping with butter, and that is not entirely a good thing. Rick: ‘You really can’t eat this in front of the television.’ But for people with a pack of napkins, this is a good buy: lots of butter, plenty of delicious garlic flavour and a good aroma, according to Louise. Vomar doesn’t disappoint this time: a decent baguette, enough herb butter but little garlic. ‘It tastes as if there’s Boursin on it,’ Bo observes critically. Still: ‘Even without the butter, this would have been a perfectly good baguette,’ says Louise.
Happily ever after
The winner: the cheapest one, from Dirk. Bo: ‘I could easily eat a whole loaf of this, it’s really delicious.’ It is striking that this is the only loaf you have to keep in the freezer; the other baguettes come from the refrigerated section. Our tip: stock up, because these things will still be good well into the next century, and you’ll always have a garlic baguette nearby. Testers are delighted with the ‘sticky’ inside and the strong garlic flavour. Simply a very good garlic baguette. Add some cheap tomato soup and you have a perfectly good meal for a hungover Sunday afternoon. For next to nothing, because seriously: €0.89 for a baguette of this quality is enough to make everyone happy.
Disclaimer: Aldi now sells a new variant: the Delicious Home herb-butter baguette costs €0.89. Plus sells the Meggle herb-butter baguette for €1.59.
