Flour - Which is best supermarket own brand or well known brand?

jessie15

Many thanks to everyone who has replied, I am so impressed to find so many! May I ask where you are buying Dove's flour from? I have never heard of it before.

LondonDreamer

jessie15 wrote: »

Many thanks to everyone who has replied, I am so impressed to find so many! May I ask where you are buying Dove's flour from? I have never heard of it before.

I buy mine in the supermarket, most medium-large ones should have at least a few varieties. Although it's sometimes with the "free from" products rather than in the home baking ailse as they do a lot of alternative grain flours. Waitrose has the largest range of my local supermarkets, but my local health food store sells a wide selection of it as well.

You can also buy directly from their website: http://www.dovesfarm.co.uk/

Angelfeathers

I use Tesco value flour, though I have had some duff bags of SR so sometimes I buy the next price up if it's for something special. Never had a problem with their value plain or bread flour, though, and my cakes do seem to be pretty popular! :-)

I tend to use butter for baking - either Tesco value or something branded if it's on offer at £1 a block, which makes it comparable to the value stuff anyway - and I have to admit I think there is a slight difference in flavour there, but not enough to make me fork out more than £1 a block! I also use Can't Believe It's Not Butter as that's often on offer and also what we tend to prefer for sandwiches etc. Or something similar like Clover if it's on offer.

I am intrigued by all the people advocating Stork. I've never ever used that but I'm thinking I might have to give it a try now!

rosalie-lavender

I use Tesco's value flour and tesco's own brand sunflower marg for cakes and biscuits. I use whatever is offer for bread flour but often use Tesco's own brand.

kitschy

I'm a value girl too - at the moment it's the same price in all the shops, so I'll get it wherever I am. Do agree it needs a sift as it tends not to be as fine as more expensive ones. Never had any complaints about my cakes or biccies, even from my food snob friends!

I use Sainsbury's soft spread (£2.89 for 2kilos) as I use a lot, and it's just as good as Stork in my opinion. I also use it for spreading on sandwiches/toast etc.

GetRealBabe

Hi

I've got a mixture of bread flours-Asda's and Tescos white, M&S stoneground organic wholemeal, Marriages very strong white and wholemeal. Next time I go shopping I'm going to buy a bag of Lidl's and Asda wholemeal. Try and buy a 2 bags every 2 weeks.

jessie15

Thank you everyone for your replies, I will be stocking up on own brand flour and marg now then. Many thanks!!

lisa26_2

I had an interesting unplanned experiment at Christmas. I needed to bake 2 batches of white rolls for a party. The first I made with Mr M's strong white flour which is what I always use. However, I only had enough for one batch and Mr M had sold out of his own brand so I'd bough Allinsons instead. I thought I could see a difference in the texture of the rolls so I kept one of each back and performed a taste test on OH who didn't know which was which. He picked the allinson one as being better and I have to agree with him, although it wasn't enough of a difference to pay loads more for the flour!!

Bongedone

I bought some ASDA Wholefoods plain flour (next level up in price from basics). Then I went through a stage of a few months where my Yorkshire puddings would collapse. Discovered it was the flour causing it as once I switched back to ASDA basics flour they rise and stay risen again.

Turkishdreamer

I buy Lidl's strong white bread flour, which is 69p for 1 1/2 kgs. If I want a different slant on white bread, I use 2 cups of the white flour and 1 cup of Allinsons Soft Grain flour - this is currently £1.19p for a 1kg bag in Sainsburys.

Have tried other flours for bread, but not had such regular success.

If I am baking I do use Sainsburys own brand flour and have not had any problems with it.