Bread Flour

Kirri

frugal_shopper wrote: »

Lidl's bread flour is ok but if you start baking bread regularly you may also want to consider some of the online suppliers as buying it in 16kg or 25kg sacks can work out quite reasonable for higher quality flour & some companies offer interesting pre-mixed blends in addition to the basic white bread flour.

http://www.wessexmill.co.uk/acatalog/Small_Bags.html#a69
http://www.shipton-mill.com/flour-direct-shop/bread-flour
http://www.dovesfarm.co.uk/flour-and-ingredients/sack-flour/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bacheldre-Watermill-Stoneground-Strong-Bakers/dp/B005FPX2H8/

As far as buying a breadmaker goes research various makes & models first as they vary an awful lot. I have lost count of the times I have heard people say they use their bread maker to nix the dough but then bake it in the oven as they do not like the way it turns out in the machine which defeats the object of buying a machine to make bread, you should be able to add ingredients & let the machine do the rest if it can't do that satisfactorily you are better off investing in a decent mixer with a dough hook. Personally I haven't found a breadmaker I am happy with so I tend to use a kenwood chef to mix the dough then bake it in the oven as per normal. If a rectangular sandwich loaf is required rather than a freeformed loaf then most good cookshops will sell proper loaf tins or searching for the terms 'pullman pan' or 'pain de mie' should find lidded loaf tins available online or on internet auction sites.

If you want fresh yeast to make your bread then many bakeries will sell you a 1kg block for 99p or if you go to Tesco & ask for fresh yeast at the instore bakery they will give you a few ounces free.

I'm currently using Shipton Mill and it's been very good.

I like Marriage's too or Waitrose organic which were the last two I had.

tronator

I just discovered that you can buy flour from Amazon too.

They have "Allinson Very Strong Premium Wholemeal Flour 1.5 Kg" for £0.85/kg if you buy a pack of four.

This price you can reduce by 10% if you "Subscribe & Save", which means you need to subscribe for recurring deliveries every 1 or 2 month, which you can cancel at any time (even after the first delivery I think).

This brings down the price to only £0.76/kg delivered. Cheaper than any supermarket own brand I found so far.

alandbailey

The best bread I make in my Panasonic is when I use Sainsbury's strong canadian flour - just as Ca55ie posted.
I also mix it with Lidl german bread mix (which includes rye which my breadmaker doesn't do) which by itself doesn't rise much, but a 50:50 mix gives me a well risen tasty loaf - be sure to add yeast, don't rely on the yeast in the bread mix.;)

dasophster

Waitrose essentials strong flours are fantastic, they aren't the cheapest but I have found them the best even better than fancy organic brands IMHO xx

Meadows

Lidl is probably the cheapest but a Good Canadian Strong Bread Flour is better (2.5 - 3 times the cost.