I'm going to say something a bit controversial here so watch it!......
Having used bread a lot over the winter - generally liquidised for the feeder and flake on the hook - I've actually found it slightly easier to fish small pieces of flake on bigger hooks. Sounds like I've lost it, right?
Ok, hold on. It goes like this... if you're using a size 16 or 18, as you might first reach for when roach fishing, you've got almost nothing to go at in terms of hook shank, so out of necessity you end up really squeezing bread on in order to make it stay on.
Whereas if you went up to a size 12 say.... you've got more shank to play with, to get the presentation just right. If you're careful, you can now engineer a much more careful presentation that only just covers the hook (remember the fluffy bit will swell anyway) that's still a roach sized morsel. The other thing I've found with this is that a) you tend to catch slightly bigger fish and b) it also tends to hook-up better, rather than giving you an endless stream of un-hittable tips and taps.
And whilst you've gone up to a bigger hook, don't be tempted to increase the line strain, stick with 2lb (3lb at most), the same as you would fishing an 18 or 20. So your presentation is still nice and fine.
All that said, I really do love this time of year... when an afternoon's bait only costs 50p!! I will happily use the cheapest bread I can find in the supermarket (and I shop at Aldi....) but I will spend a few minutes looking for the freshest bread possible.