Bread Flour

jamanda

I also managed to get some from the local Co-op the other day.  First time since before lockdown, and I also make bread regularly.

pumpkin89

I'm surprised to hear several people are still struggling to get hold of it.  There were big shortages for the first few weeks of lockdown, but for the last 6 weeks or so there's been plenty in my area.  Even managed to get some easy bake yeast last week, which was a pleasant shock.  It may be worth asking the staff what time of the day/week they get their delivery?

GaleSF63

pumpkin89 said:

  It may be worth asking the staff what time of the day/week they get their delivery?

That helped some friends of mine in the days when so many things were going fast. 

2childmum2

We are still struggling to find any sort of flour, yeast, baking powder, desiccated coconut - the list goes on. And we have several large supermarkets within easy travelling distance.  I bake for a community project so this is causing some problems - resorted to rice krispie cakes last week!!!

pogofish

pumpkin89 said:

I'm surprised to hear several people are still struggling to get hold of it.  

Still nonexistent here, along with yeast, although plain flour and other baking essentials  have begun to reappear in the last couple of weeks.

I managed to get two bags, piggybacked-on to an online shop for my elderly mother a few weeks back but since then, her store has been out online and in-store, then I got 4kg online at a hefty premium but when that’s finished, I don’t know.

Yeast - I got a 500g packet online, which I split with a neighbour. The seller then made a mistake and sent the order again but very nicely, thanked me for my honesty and refused to take-up my offer to pay for it, so at least I’m sorted there for ages!

Nargleblast

I read somewhere that chapati flour can be used for everything, just adding baking powder or yeast as appropriate so I got a 10kg bag of wholemeal from Tesco this week. The ingredients list says wheat flour, calcium carbonate,iron, thiamine, niacin. I looked on a bag of bread flour - identical ingredients list. I made a wholemeal loaf using it in the breadmaker - turned out excellent, I have put white chapati flour on my next shopping list and will try it in cakes.

molerat

Plain & SR flour now seem pretty plentiful but still very little bread flour about.  Once again my local Lidl did have a shelf full on Wednesday early so got another 2 bags for my cupboard.  No yeast anywhere but my 500g Fermipan will see me through.

Bacman

Same ingredients; however the thing with flour is how fine the powder is which depends on how good it is for different purposes; the chapati flour isn't as fine as plain flour, which isn't as fine as bread flour. It's like for example almonds - whole, bits, halves, powder - ingredients however will all say "100% almonds"; not the same product though...

Nargleblast

Bacman
I found the chapati flour seems quite fine, and it made a really good wholemeal loaf. I will get some white chapati flour and maybe, taking your comment on board, sieve it to make a cake. If it is not successful I can still make biscuits, crumble topping, pancakes, dumplings, flatbreads, naans, perhaps scones and pastry. I don't know if you can get it in quantities smaller than 10kgs, but 50 pence a kg is a good price. It will be worth a try if we get further shortages in supply later in the year.

Steve_L

Out of interest, I searched for "flour", whilst adding something to my ASDA online trolley a couple of days ago. Assuming that what I saw has any basis in reality, my designated store has all types and brands, even their budget own brand. Maybe, this is because everyone expects them to have none, so, like me, no-one has been bothering to look for it. At least, they haven't stopped selling it because there was no demand.