Bread flour vs ordinary plain flour?

zippychick

Interesting thread. Ive not noticed a difference between SWB and plain, as i used plain once by accident. May have to experiment

I am loath to eat too much white bread so am just mastering brown - which per loaf works out almost double the price from memory - i have the figures at home. That's even with using third each of SWB, Granary and wholemeal.

Im sure i worked out a White 1.5lb loaf as 34ish p or there abouts - do you think that is expensive compared to shop prices? The only cost i didnt include was sugar and salt and oil as they are usually in store cupboard. Still, can't imagine it would bump the price up much further.

Perhaps I have it all wrong?

crockpot

Well I have made it and it looks ok!

Will have to wait for hubbie to come home and taste test, I am doing slimming world and had my bread allowance today!

Think I will do half and half and see what thats like.

thanks

kippers

crockpot wrote: »

Well I have made it and it looks ok!

Will have to wait for hubbie to come home and taste test, I am doing slimming world and had my bread allowance today!

Think I will do half and half and see what thats like.

thanks

Been thinking of trying this myself...what did you think to the bread crockpot?

jinny

I always use the cheapest plain flour I can find to make buns or stottie type bread and I find it fine. I havent tried a loaf type one though as I only rise the buns or stotties for 30mins. Years ago my grannie always just used plain flour I wouldnt imagine she would buy special bread flour.

crockpot

The loaf is fine and there is only 1/2 left so it was an experiment worth doing!

cuca

OMW - I am sure when we left the UK 4 years ago a bag of plain flour was about 20 odd pence :eek: Maybe I dont remember correctly, but that sounds pricey! (Admittedly i was a netto gal)....

motherkitty

Always use value plain four but only for pizza base, have never tried it for a loaf of bread. Would certainly give it a go though.

spaghetti_monster

Hi there!

I live in Holland and often miss the variety of baking ingredients in UK supermarkets. I was making my own bread for a while, but I can usually only get my hands on normal plain white flour and it wasn't working too well.

Anyway, happened to pass an old working windmill the other day (for the first time!) so as well as getting a tour I grabbed the chance to buy some other flour. Now I'm trying to figure out exactly what it is (I'm having a bit of trouble with translation):

I got one bag of "volkorenmeel". "Volkoren" by itself usually means wholemeal. So maybe that's what it is - whole-meal.

The 2nd bag is "tarwebloem" which means wheatflour. It's finer in texture than the other bag. The old guys in the windmill were saying that one bag was meel/meal and the other bloem/flour.
They also said I needed the meal to make bread, but to mix in flour so the bread wasn't too heavy.

So should I try my usual bread recipe and do half from each bag??

Thanks!

ariba10

The main thing with bread making is that you use what is termed a Strong Flour.

It is made from a particular type of wheat grown mostly in the United States I believe.

rosieben

Yes, I think I'd start off with half and half and make adjustments if needed. How great to be able to buy flour straight from the millers!