Kitchen Garden Forum

I know that it can be tricky to get hold of white bread flour at the moment. Shipton Mill have re-commenced deliveries of their (very good) flour. It can be bought by the bag or by the sack, and they deliver. They release delivery slots each day according to availability. If they are available, you email them and they send you a link to put in your order. It can be a bit pot luck as to whether you find a time with slots available, but if you do, you can order a decent range and decent quantities if you need to stock up.

What I have failed to buy in store is yeast.

Have you tried sourdough, Stephen? It's not to everyone's taste, I know, but I love the stuff. Also, as a compromise, you can do a thing called a poolish, which is half sourdough starter and a pinch of yeast. You get the best of both worlds of each type of yeast, but it also makes regular yeast go much further. Typically, you only need 3g (half a sachet) for a standard large loaf.

I just found bread flour in Morrisons. Only in 16kg sacks though. Now I need to bake ~30 loaves. With one packet of yeast - I may have to breed my own !

Vivienz - I like sourdough bread but I'm not confident of my ability to keep my starter going.

Stephen wrote:Vivienz - I like sourdough bread but I'm not confident of my ability to keep my starter going.

You can make a batch and then freeze it rather than give up permanent fridge space to it. I call mine Boris and it lives on the top shelf of my fridge. It glares at me balefully if I don't feed it once a week.

Tony Hague wrote:I just found bread flour in Morrisons. Only in 16kg sacks though. Now I need to bake ~30 loaves. With one packet of yeast - I may have to breed my own !

Sourdough is exactly that. There are plenty of tutorials on the net, but it's basically mixing some flour and water and doing the same for a few days until it starts to bubble from the wild yeast. It's not good in bread machines as it's a slower rise, but easy and super tasty.

I quite like sourdough but it it's not a keeper in the bread bin & goes hard quickly! I can't be bothered with a starter when the big supermarkets sell it ready & tasty & sliced!

Latest wheeze is to blitz up porridge oats and make your own flour…….we've not tried it yet, but SWMBO is planning an assault on my breakfast later...…………………...

Well, I use oatmeal in my soda bread/wheaten bread recipe, and that's really nice. You never know for sure how anything will be until you try it - a bit like gardening, really.

Anybody found bread flour at a sensible price delivered? We are getting Morrison deliveries (much better than Tesco that we tried first who delivered stuff with 1 or 2 day use by dates whereas Morrison's are sensible) but although they are selling it in store they won't deliver, not much help when you are avoiding shops, not been in one since 18th March.

I'm rather late to this one, apologies. If you're still looking, Geoff, take a look at Shipton Mill. They deliver and you can choose bags or sacks. Their flour is lovely - I'm working my way through a sack of their best white and another of the malted grain, as well as a bag of their pasta flour and rye flour. Highly recommended.

Agree with you V.
I use Shipton Mill and their flour is some of the best around. Many less common types to choose from that are hard to find any where else.
Delivery is quick but then I don't live very far away from the mill. The website is excellent.

John

Anybody found bread flour at a sensible price

Trouble is before lockdown we were paying 55p for 1½ kg bag that made excellent bread, why should we have to suddenly pay £1.30 kg? Somebody is taking us for a ride.

Stephen wrote:What I have failed to buy in store is yeast.

Rather late reply to this, but I have also found it impossible to get yeast - it sits happily in my supermarket online order for most of the time after I put it in the basket, then magically becomes unavailable on the day of delivery. Always.

Once I'd used up what I had, I took a chance and ordered some brewer's yeast (Young's Dried Active Yeast). I made my first loaf with this 2 weeks ago, and was prepared for a disaster, or at least beery bread, but the difference in the results was - NOTHING. No difference in the bread at all, using my usual recipe, and my usual breadmaker settings.

The brewers yeast comes in tiny ball-like pellets, but you use just the same quantity as for baking yeast and you need no extra liquids. I have been told that it's not suitable for sweeter bread recipes, and it's certainly no good for cakes as it will give them a savoury tang, but for standard bread it is great.

I think brewers yeast is slightly less easy to get hold of as well now, but it's still available on home brewing websites at normal prices. Amazon and Ebay are selling it, but but you'd need to remortgage your house to get it...