Why is there no flour?

[spuorgelgoog]

My house is made from bricks; I've never bought a brick.

Owain

[Jake56]

Doesn?t even take 1 minute of my time with mine.

[S Viemeister]

When I couldn't find bread flour, I bought a 10 kilo sack sold as white chapati flour. It's not really white, more light brown, and it makes excellent yeast-raised bread.

[Tim Streater]

I'm not paying £6 for a bag. Usually try to get the 3kg Alinsons bag which costs around £3 according to SWMBO. That's 40p for the flour for a 400gm loaf, and is the expensive item.

[Dave W]

Nor built a house.

[Brian Reay]

?Everyone? seems to have taken up baking etc during the lockdown, I assume.

We normally keep a stock of bread flour as I bake bread often. I?ve still got a bit of flour left but I?m out of yeast. There hasn?t been any in the shops for weeks- it isn?t something you can keep in stock at home, at least not for that long.

[Brian Reay]

You could try Bannock.

I?ve not made it for nearly 50 years but I was thinking about it the other day as we?ve run out of yeast.

If seen it a few times on YouTube- it is popular with campers (I learned to make it in the Scouts). Basically a flat bread. As one of the videos on YouTube mentions, most cultures have a flat bread in their cuisine, Bannock is probably our closest. The Indians (Asian ones) have Naan bread, North American Indians have theirs, ......

You can use an oven but cooking on a griddle / frying pan is more common. (Naan is done in a special oven of course).

Not really a substitute for normal bread but our perception of normal bread is rather an interesting concept. There was a very good documentary on BBC

4 a few days ago on the history of bread.

[T i m]

<snip>

Isn't that 'cornflour'?

Cheers, T i m

[Max Demian]

Cornflour (aka maize starch) has been available all along.

[polygonum_on_google]

You can freeze it!

The last loaf I made used yeast that I had frozen some weeks ago.

[T i m]

I don't think it's the flour one normally use to make bread. Not that I 'normally' make bread and when I have it's generally been a pre-mix (or when I borrowed a neighbours bread-maker).

Pass, I'm not a baker. ;-)

So it makes something else (other than what most people consider to be bread I mean), like the pancakes or Yorkshire puddings I've been making? ;-)

I did consider bagels but I believe that needs a yeast and I don't have the time atm to be 'playing' with such 'extra' / time consuming things.

I like Max's idea of chapattis though.

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

Quite, so I'm thinking must be sufficiently 'different from regular 'flour' to stop people using it as std flour?

Plus (and my point) is that I thought it was that that you use for thickening stews, not self raising flour that would be better suited to other things, especially atm?

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

<snip>

That could have also been when you made the bread. ;-)

What would be more interesting would be if you had just made bread from yeast you froze a year ago (and presumably you could)?

Given I'm guessing you don't need a lot, I'm surprised you don't hear more of people keeping their own frozen stocks (like ice cubes)?

Or is it that *normally* dried / fresh yeast is so easy to come by?

Cheers, T i m

[The Natural Philosopher]

I've done both

[tim...]

I think you mean yeast

All wheat flour has gluten

but even with yeast, why can't you make bread out of self raising flour (assuming that is the case)

tim

[tim...]

but the OP did

that how we started this thread

tim

[tim...]

no, they've been stocking up just in case

like the people who bought 6 packs of eggs, that they had no possible way of using before they passed their use buy date

tim

[Bob Eager]

Not *enough* gluten to give the dough a good internal structure. Strong (bread) flour is made from a different kind of wheat, with more gluten.

[mm0fmf]

They ate them all, got egg-bound, took laxatives and then needed all the toilet roll they had stocked up with. See there is method to their madness!

[Tim Streater]

AIUI, ordinary self-raising doesn't have enough protein in the wheat, so it's OK for cakes but not for bread. For bread you need strong white flour, and yeast.