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I just dare you to find Bread Flour in the grocery store. I've been stopping at every grocery store.
With the Covid 19 situation, I've never seen such a lack of all purpose flour and yeast. It's like everyone's making their own bread. But bread flour has taken me 3 weeks to find on store shelves, and I bought 10 lbs. yesterday. Publix was holding the price very high--and I got the last 2 bags.
I haven't shopped for flour at a grocery store in about two years. There are plenty of online suppliers - either through Amazon or mills directly - who are stocked and ready to ship, some in a day or two, some in a week or two, and higher quality flour (organic, stone milled, sprouted) and, if you do careful research, at more competitive prices than grocery stores, especially if buying 10-25 pounds at a time (even 50 pounds). Earlier this week, I ordered 20 pounds from a mill in Montana through Amazon and it already arrived after only three days (Amazon must have had it in warehouse).
I use whole grain rye flour, whole grain wheat flour, whole wheat white, quinoa, teff, sometimes enriched white wheat/barley, oat, yucca, millet, and various legume flours (pea, bean). I do sometimes mix in a small portion of vital wheat gluten when using rye or non-gluten flours (no gluten intolerance in this household).
I both maintain my own yeast (current batch from rye flour) and use Sauf instant dry yeast (commercial yeast).
I usually keep it simple: salt, water, flour, yeast; if commercial yeast, then proofed in about 1/4 cup of almond milk - by now kids prefer it to Publix "French" bread -, if my own starter yeast (aka sourdough), then mixed in all together.
Sometimes I add seeds (caraway for rye bread, sesame, poppy, fennel) or walnuts. I don't add oil, except in the final stages when making flat breads such as pita, focaccia, pizza.
Lately, in addition to simple bread, I've been making potato foccacia, last time using quinoa flour. Next time - like tomorrow - I'm going to try it with teff flour and sweet potato.
I just ordered about four pounds of whole grain einkorn flour (triticum monococcum, aka farro piccolo), which has a sweeter flavor than common whole wheat (triticum aestivum) in an attempt to get the kids to eat more nutritious whole grain wheat bread; I've made spelt (farro grande) bread before and there is definitely a difference. We'll see.
I just dare you to find Bread Flour in the grocery store. I've been stopping at every grocery store.
With the Covid 19 situation, I've never seen such a lack of all purpose flour and yeast. It's like everyone's making their own bread. But bread flour has taken me 3 weeks to find on store shelves, and I bought 10 lbs. yesterday. Publix was holding the price very high--and I got the last 2 bags.
You can make perfectly good bread without bread flour, I do it all the time. The only difference is that bread flour has 11-13% protein while other flour typically has less, but Gold Medal unbleached has 10.5% and Pillsbury Unbleached has 10-11%. I try to keep AP and bread flour on hand but it's not always possible and the worst thing that will happen when using AP flour for bread is that it might be slightly more dense and not rise quite as much. If that's an issue buy a bag of vital wheat gluten, Amazon has it for around $6 a pound and add a teaspoon to two or three cups of flour
I haven't shopped for flour at a grocery store in about two years. There are plenty of online suppliers - either through Amazon or mills directly - who are stocked and ready to ship, some in a day or two, some in a week or two, and higher quality flour (organic, stone milled, sprouted) and, if you do careful research, at more competitive prices than grocery stores, especially if buying 10-25 pounds at a time (even 50 pounds). Earlier this week, I ordered 20 pounds from a mill in Montana through Amazon and it already arrived after only three days (Amazon must have had it in warehouse).
I use whole grain rye flour, whole grain wheat flour, whole wheat white, quinoa, teff, sometimes enriched white wheat/barley, oat, yucca, millet, and various legume flours (pea, bean). I do sometimes mix in a small portion of vital wheat gluten when using rye or non-gluten flours (no gluten intolerance in this household).
I both maintain my own yeast (current batch from rye flour) and use Sauf instant dry yeast (commercial yeast).
I usually keep it simple: salt, water, flour, yeast; if commercial yeast, then proofed in about 1/4 cup of almond milk - by now kids prefer it to Publix "French" bread -, if my own starter yeast (aka sourdough), then mixed in all together.
Sometimes I add seeds (caraway for rye bread, sesame, poppy, fennel) or walnuts. I don't add oil, except in the final stages when making flat breads such as pita, focaccia, pizza.
Lately, in addition to simple bread, I've been making potato foccacia, last time using quinoa flour. Next time - like tomorrow - I'm going to try it with teff flour and sweet potato.
I just ordered about four pounds of whole grain einkorn flour (triticum monococcum, aka farro piccolo), which has a sweeter flavor than common whole wheat (triticum aestivum) in an attempt to get the kids to eat more nutritious whole grain wheat bread; I've made spelt (farro grande) bread before and there is definitely a difference. We'll see.
Hope this helps.
All the best!
Oops! I just posted without reading this, I mentioned vital wheat gluten too, but there are times when I just make a quick loaf with whatever AP flour i have on hand. I really enjoyed your post, I've never tried Einkorn that sounds interesting. I don't like Spelt at all and my husband lusts for Rye bread and I can't stand it lol
You can make perfectly good bread without bread flour, I do it all the time. The only difference is that bread flour has 11-13% protein while other flour typically has less, but Gold Medal unbleached has 10.5% and Pillsbury Unbleached has 10-11%. I try to keep AP and bread flour on hand but it's not always possible and the worst thing that will happen when using AP flour for bread is that it might be slightly more dense and not rise quite as much. If that's an issue buy a bag of vital wheat gluten, Amazon has it for around $6 a pound and add a teaspoon to two or three cups of flour
King Arthur all-purpose flour has 11.7 percent protein and what I use for bread, sometimes adding their bread flour (12.7%) or their white whole wheat flour (13%) when the all-purpose is getting low or a recipe calls for them.
I didn’t see percentage protein numbers on my two kinds of flour, but they did give protein amounts.
Per 1/4 cup:
Cortez Milling Co. Blue Bird (white) bread flour: 2 grams
Bob’s Red Mill whole wheat flour (which is bread flour unless it is whole wheat pastry flour): 7 grams
That is a BIG difference in protein content! Yet the white bread flour works fine as bread flour.
BTW, there are more calories in the whole wheat flour, too. Not surprising, since it includes the richer parts of the grain.
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