Yeast and Flour - available

Buywholefoodsonline.co.uk now has quick yeast in stock. (Not active dry, which is, IMO, better for traditional breadmaking, but usable anyway.)

The Bulgarian honey is a nice substitute for cane or beet sugar.

If you are on their VIP list (requiring only that you register for it) this week's special is 1.5 kg of hard white (or wholewheat) bread flour free with a £30 order. We have used this flour in the past and it's lovely. Unfortunately, right now they are out of most of the other wheat flours, but have a decent amount of alternative flours available. They also sell gluten, which can be added to a standard flour to help it along. That is also currently in stock.

Shipping is also free at the £30 mark.

Using referral https://www.buywholefoodsonline.co.uk/rewardsref/index/refer/id/257893/
with code 19857761  should get you 250 loyalty points at checkout, which can be applied as discounts on future orders.

Look what else they've got
https://www.buywholefoodsonline.co.uk/marron-glace-12-pieces-boxed-240g.html
Mrs jimbocz loves these and gets a box from her family every Christmas. 

Yesterday I went to my local baker and bought some bread flour from them.  2 kgs for £3.75 which seems like a rip off except they had it and I didn't have to stand in the line for Teco that was 20 people deep.

Yesterday I went to my local baker and bought some bread flour from them.  2 kgs for £3.75 which seems like a rip off except they had it and I didn't have to stand in the line for Teco that was 20 people deep.

It's probably better quality flour than you'd get at Tesco.  Before I started baking bread, I scoffed at the idea of buying anything other than the store's own brand of plain white.  But I have found that the quality of the flour makes a huge difference... which makes sense now that I think of it, when you consider flour makes up the bulk of the finished product.

It's probably better quality flour than you'd get at Tesco.  Before I started baking bread, I scoffed at the idea of buying anything other than the store's own brand of plain white.  But I have found that the quality of the flour makes a huge difference... which makes sense now that I think of it, when you consider flour makes up the bulk of the finished product.

  Don't know if you are aware since you are stuck at home, but there is currently little or no flour in stores.  The entire flour / yeast shelves is completely empty.  Toilet paper aisle is completely full, so is almost everything else. 

Yeah, I've been trying to source good baking yeast, as well as flour, as we're getting low on the latter. I've been able to get plain bread flour from Tesco, which will do. We mix it with other flours we keep (buckwheat, spelt, whatever) and it makes a decent loaf.  I managed to snag a delivery slot for the 4th, and have ordered more - will be interesting to see if it arrives or not.

I did finally, after much searching, find Red Star Dry Active Yeast from the USA, but it was going to cost me $24 for one pound of it. (Which is a heck of a lot of yeast.) But since it's usually about $4, I couldn't make myself do it. If anyone wants to go in halfsies, I might consider that. No telling how long it would take to get here, though. I'm still scouting for Bob's Red Mill yeast, which is about the best I've used, but since all of America is now on the same trajectory (baking at home) we are on, it's also sold out everywhere.

Interesting on the flour. They are saying it's from all the home bakers buying it up. I am wondering how much the failure of the winter wheat crop and the floods preventing replanting it have to do with the supply? I would assume that most of the available flour and that which is being imported is going to commercial uses, so it might be some time before an adequate supply of really good baking flour is available for the "home baker".

  Don't know if you are aware since you are stuck at home, but there is currently little or no flour in stores.  The entire flour / yeast shelves is completely empty.  Toilet paper aisle is completely full, so is almost everything else. 

Yeah, my husband has been keeping me updated on things from the Outside.  Fortunately, I'd ordered a large quantity of yeast packets (the little 7g packets) from Amazon a few months ago, so have plenty of yeast in individually-sealed portions, so that'll keep for a long time.  Meanwhile, we have an order for flour pending with a mill.  We put it in many weeks ago, and then a few days after we ordered our flour the mill shut down order-taking on their website and put up a notice saying they were inundated and couldn't cope with demand.  They've recently updated their site to say that they hoped to be caught up with processing the pending orders within about a week (this was a week ago), and they hoped to be re-opening ordering soon.  My husband and I are *hoping* our order arrives sometime in the next week or two... we expected about two weeks from the date of that update (another week for them to finish catching up, and then allow a week for delivery).  Fingers crossed.

For now, we've been scraping by with the remnants of the varieties I didn't like working with as much from our first mill order, which I've been trying to cut with supermarket plain flour to make it all work, and to make the plain flour last longer.  I have a little over a kilogram of white left, and not much to cut it with.  I think I can make about 3 more small loaves of bread before we run out (I use about 350g per loaf).

Update:  Our flour arrived!  A 16kg bag of type 00, and a 16kg bag of plain flour.  It's in the shed at the moment.  I'm leaving it out there for a few days while I wait for any virus that might be on the bags to die.  Then I'll bring them inside and pour each bag into an airtight container I have in the storage room.

Update:  Our flour arrived!  A 16kg bag of type 00, and a 16kg bag of plain flour.  It's in the shed at the moment.  I'm leaving it out there for a few days while I wait for any virus that might be on the bags to die.  Then I'll bring them inside and pour each bag into an airtight container I have in the storage room.

Score!

Update:  Our flour arrived!  A 16kg bag of type 00, and a 16kg bag of plain flour.  It's in the shed at the moment.  I'm leaving it out there for a few days while I wait for any virus that might be on the bags to die.  Then I'll bring them inside and pour each bag into an airtight container I have in the storage room.

Holy cow, that's a lot of flour.  Sorry if you've already mentioned this, but why plain flour?  I thought you wanted to make bread?  And I thought type 00 was for pizza dough so I guess that makes sense. 

I can (and do) make perfectly fine bread with plain flour, and it's also useful for a multitude of other things.  Since we were buying bulk, we wanted versatile options.  The 00 is good for pizza bases, bread (yes, really), and pasta.  Especially pasta.

My white bread loaf is usually 50% 00, 50% plain flour, with half milk/half water for the liquid.

I can (and do) make perfectly fine bread with plain flour, and it's also useful for a multitude of other things.  Since we were buying bulk, we wanted versatile options.  The 00 is good for pizza bases, bread (yes, really), and pasta.  Especially pasta.

My white bread loaf is usually 50% 00, 50% plain flour, with half milk/half water for the liquid.

  Learn something new every day.  How much did those big bags cost?  The price here in Twickenham is £4 for 2.5 kg

  Learn something new every day.  How much did those big bags cost?  The price here in Twickenham is £4 for 2.5 kg

It was around £40-50, delivered for 32kg of flour, in total.


Oh, my husband found the receipt...

Type 00:  £19 for 16kg
Plain: £13.48 for 16kg  (this is currently out of stock on their website)

Our total came to £46.63 including shipping... the shipping was quite a lot of the price, really.  But given the weight, we weren't surprised.

Several of our local corner shops have arranged flour and yeast repackaging through local bakeries. The bakeries repackage it in smaller bags and distribute it to the mom and pop shops meanwhile the large grocery chains are still sold out.



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Please enjoy allllllllll the gluten for me!