A well meaning friend triumphantly appeared at my door with a 25 pound bag of all purpose flour he bought at Costco. It is a thank you for teaching him to make no knead bread.
I’m very appreciative, but I’m a household of one. So I have two questions.
Do I have to make any adjustments to the no knead bread recipe if I use AP flour instead of bread flour? (Which I have used exclusively until now.)
Are there any recipes you know that use an insane amount of flour?
I do have a large network of family and friends that I plan gifting these baked items to, after I conduct the obligatory taste test!
The NKB recipe - Lahey’s version anyway - uses AP flour.
Most recipes halve and quarter fine if you have smaller baking apparatus. (For recipes that have an odd number of eggs, I round up on the egg.) Also, I freeze rather than refrigerate anything baked - lasts better that way.
But with a 25# bag, I’m sure your extended circle will appreciate the ensuing baked goodies!
Would like to suggest if you have the freezer space, you could also reportion the flour into ziplocks, and freeze it to preserve freshness, if you don’t want to have to do a large amount of baking within the next couple of months or so, @heidicooksandbakes. (Long run on sentence)
Not what you asked, but are there people you know who would accept a repackaged gift of AP flour? I shared some bulk yeast and flour a few weeks ago. And I have 15 pounds of “converted” rice I was so happy to score, but should probably find a way to share.
Agree @ Saregama! Very thoughtful @shrinkrap, I know people were pretty desperate for some in our parts not long ago, but supply seems to be fairly good now according to H.
Pastry freezes well and it’s a bit of a pain to make each time. If you have room in your freezer you could batch make pastry so always have some ready.
I felt like I had won a prize when I saw a bag of King Arthur unbleached flour being loaded into my car. I have fortunately been able to get small amounts here and there but never what I really wanted. Same with rice.
I have a neighbor who was desperate for some flour. Sadly, I only had about I cup left, so none to share. Supplies seem good here now though. In fact I need to make bread today. If any of you are still needing yeast, the whey left over from yogurt or cheese making turbo charges just a tiny amount of yeast; in fact many don’t even add yeast when using.
If directed at me @MsBean, no, but thanks. I had a very weird impulse on my last trip to a supermarket. I grabbed quite a few packets, and more than we needed, by far. Not sure why, but glad I did. Every time H has gone shopping since then, I always asked him to look for flour, sugar, and yeast. He found and bought pizza yeast first, then started to find sugar, and flour too, but not all at the same time. So, good to go for both baking and jam making, which I need to do.
I actually meant to direct it to @heidicooksandbakes. She lives in my neighborhood. I usually have one of those pound bags from Costco even though I am so NOT a baker. Flour and sugar appear randomly around here but I haven’t seen yeast in ages.
Ah, wasn’t sure. Yes I buy the big yeast from Costco, because even if you just use part of it, lots cheaper than the little packs. But H complains about it…grrrr
Do you really want to know how old I was before i used, hell, was even aware of anything but AP flour? Or that my mother, who made the most ethereal French batarrds weekly never used anything but AP flour?
Use it with gay abandon and realize that the quality of the loaf may or may not have relationship with the flour rather than the baker.
