We first tried tiger bread when I was doing the shopping with the children, and my eldest was really taken with the name and appearance of this bread, so we decided to give it a try.

It's available in Asda as an 800g or 400g white bloomer, and I think I've also recently seen it as white rolls. It looks like a lovely soft white bloomer, but it has a distinctive patterned top with a darker crust colour forming almost stripes or patches on the top. Having looked it up, I can tell you that this pattern is made by painting rice paste on top of the bread prior to baking.

The patterned top also has a very distinctive, almost mildly spicy flavour. It is absolutely delicious and really brings something extra to the loaf. The crust is nice and crispy but not too hard or dry, and the inside is the most wonderful soft white bread. It really is the sort of thing you just want to cut a doorstop of, slather it with butter and gobble it up - and that's pretty much what tends to happen in our house!

We have tiger bread now as a bit of a treat - we usually stick to the very much blander and totally unexciting Asda's fresh for a week wholemeal. This has the advantage of being cheaper than the tiger bread (75p for 800g compared to 94p for the same sized tiger loaf), but also of lasting longer. This isn't just becuase the fresh for a week does actually stay fresh for a week, but also because the tiger bread is too delicious and gets devoured in a few days!

I am looking forward to the weekend when a special occasion means we will be treating ourselves to a loaf of tiger bread - yum!