Bread flour vs ordinary plain flour?

squeaky

jcr16 wrote:

morrisons sell fresh yeast for about 20p. but not sure if i can use fresh in bread maker . any ideas ?

I've started using it in mine recently but have found that although the bread rises beautifully (having previously got the yeast started in warm water with the sugar) it would then collapse quite markedly at the start of the cooking stage.

My then standard recipe was 260g water and 520g flour. I've adjusted to 300g water to 500g flour and they only sink a tiny amount now and stay light and tasty.

Yum

bs0u0128

self raising or plain flour for homemade bread?

thriftlady_2

Neither, you need strong plain flour (sometimes called bread flour of flour for breadmakers).

Heth_2

I always use bread flour.

Toxic_Lemon

Yes, it must be strong plain flour for bread, also known as bread flour.

squeaky

You can in fact get away with using ordinary plain flour, but because the gluten content is lower than in strong flour you'll need to give it more rise time. If you are using a breadmaker you should use the longest program it has which is usually the one for wholemeal flour.

It can take a bit of experimentation to get it right though

mouseymousey99

I always make mine by hand only ever buy SR flour, use it for everything & no problems.

thriftlady_2

Check this out for an explanation of why strong flour is preferred for breadmaking.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2198586

culpepper

Ive made it from all three of those.The self raising and plain acted the same , neither rose as well as strong plain but then I only gave them the same amount of rising time. If I am running out of bread flour, I sometimes mix the strong with one of the others 1/2 and 1/2 just to eke it out till next shopping day.

crockpot

I have a MR fastbake and make bread and pizza dough in it but the price of bread flour at Lidl has gone up from 46p a bag in jan to 79p now!

A bag of plain or Sr is 43p, is there any reason why i could not use this? atleast for the pizza dough anyway?

What is it that makes flour bread flour?

Or can anyone tell me where I can buy cheap normal white bread flour from?

thanks