Good morning!
As of this morning, 3 lb. bags of unbleached flour can be purchased at King Arthur Flour. They also appear to have SAF Red Instant Yeast (1 lb. for 5.95).
3-lb King Arthur Unbleached All Purpose Flour
1-lb King Arthur Gold Instant Yeast
1-lb King Arthur SAF Red Instant Yeast (original)
They are limiting purchases to two of each kind of item.
Also, I have had 2 reports this morning of the front page spinning, freezing, hanging or not loading – one on a phone and one on a Kindle. Both said the problem started yesterday. I believe I have identified the errant post, and it has been quarantined.
If anyone else experienced that problem on the front page (yesterday or this morning) please let me know ASAP if the problem is still occurring.
Open Thread.
NotMax
Flour and suchlike aplenty at the supermarket and also at Target the other day. And Home Depot was chockablock with cleaning products.
That’s what it gets for not wearing a mask.
;)
WaterGirl
@NotMax: Really? We still have none!
ruemara
Amazing. I haven’t seen flour besides gluten free versions, in about 3 weeks and toilet paper is still limited availability. What the heck are people doing?
WaterGirl
@ruemara: I have not found toilet paper at the store since about the middle of March.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’ve seen a lot of people here asking about stimulus checks: I’m listening to NPR and they’re doing a story about it, tomorrow is the deadline for giving your bank info to the IRS for a direct deposit. The story is frankly not terribly informative, but this is the most explanation they give about why some people haven’t received a check yet
WaterGirl
@ruemara: I made my first yeast bread on Sunday, and it was quite yummy.
Catherine D.
I scored 12 lbs of KA flour at BJs two weeks ago to bolster what I already had. KA shipped my SAF yeast and new Emile Henry pan yesterday (about a 2 week wait on the yeast)
TaMara (HFG)
My last trip to the store(s) was heartening. TP, paper towels, and yes, KA unbleached flour, my fave. I also scored disinfectant wipes, alcohol and peroxide (a necessity with pets and carpet). Nice to come out of quarantine to that. Shopping has been so very stressful since March.
I wanted to grab two bags of flour, but that’s what causes shortages and since I only needed one, I bought one and crossed my fingers there would be more full shelves next time I needed it. I then made Potato Bread and wow, it was amazing. I’ll post a recipe later today or tomorrow.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Only thing I could not find – and was specifically looking for it – was cornmeal. No biggie to not have it, an inconvenience rather than a mortal blow when it comes to some baking. In a pinch can substitute matzo meal, which is already in the larder.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
I wonder how many people who decided to start baking but never have before, will find themselves with bags of unopened flour years from now?
Why are the stores sold out of toilet paper at 10 AM still? Is this OCD gone into overdrive?
WaterGirl
@TaMara (HFG): Double hat trick! That’s amazing. We still can’t get any of those. (Except paper towels.)
Sab
I woke up in the middle of the night wanting pancakes for some reason. So I made them this morning. We overate, fed the two left over to the dogs, and then went back to bed. We are going to be huge in a few months
ETA My husband says that I have never made him pancakes before. Seems unlikely but it might be true.
Immanentize
@NotMax: I’ve been looking for corn meal too — medium grind for grits or polenta. Finally got it yesterday at Whole Foods.
Capri
My daughter-in-law works for General Foods. Their in-store business is up 75% over this time last year. The biggest limitation is finding enough flour to make into their products.
Also, for many brands they are just churning out tons of the 1 or 2 most popular flavors. No more dill pickle flavored Chex Mix until the pandemic is over.
WaterGirl
@NotMax: @Immanentize:
I got a great recipe for chicken & dumplings from Beth (of BJ calendar fame) in late January. It called for corn meal, and i discovered that mine was 4-years old. So I scored new corn meal in January before everyone started laying in extra supplies.
NotMax
@Immanentize
Thought of doubling back to swing by Whole Foods after finishing up at all the other stops but at that point was outvoted by the knees.
Immanentize
@WaterGirl: recipe linky???
Cornmeal doesn’t expire as much as it might get weevils.
Immanentize
@NotMax: Knees versus stomach. Two votes to one.
Josie
Thanks for the King Arthur tip, TaMara. Just ordered instant yeast, which is not to be found in my part of Houston. Can you use instant yeast in your regular bread recipes or do you need specific recipes? I’ve never used it before, only the regular kind.
TaMara (HFG)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: When I went on the website, they told me when mine would be mailed and it arrived a few days after that date. They do not have my bank info, because yes, I always owe, I never get a refund (as I am self-employed, I’m not keen on giving the Gov’t extra money and prefer to “settle up” at the end of the year).
So if you can get a response other than “we don’t have any info” it seems to be fairly accurate.
TaMara (HFG)
@Josie: All my bread recipes use instant yeast – it seems to work best at this altitude, but also, I’m seeing a lot more recipes call for it. That way you get that great yeasty flavor after only two rises.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
I primarily use it to make a corn rye I really, really like in the super duper bread machine.
Any corn flavor is not a crucial factor, figure the matzo meal will supply the sought after infusion of graininess.
WaterGirl
@Immanentize:
I removed a lot of the extra instructions, so this is the bare bones version. The link below contains everything, including beautiful photos.
INGREDIENTS
INSTRUCTIONS
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl: Also, that tic-toc post (whatever the hell the Youngs call that app) that JC linked to the other day kept…expanding, and expanding, and expanding…
I was in Safari.
Miss Bianca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: thanks for this info – my friend D got his check the other day, still waiting for mine. My bank got bought out late last year, so the routing information is undoubtedly different. Guess I should just go ahead and give the IRS the info today just in case!
M31
lol I went crazy after not being able to find flour for 6 weeks and just ordered 100lbs (50 of KA all purpose and 50 of KA high gluten), being delivered today, sorry FedEx dude
I always baked a lot and was resenting all the newbies buying up all the flour, but now that I’ll be oversupplied (and taking care of my friends) I’m mellow, come on in it’s nice and warm and yeasty in here
check out restaurant supply and baking supply places, they have flour
lol looked longingly at the 50lb bag of poppy seeds but that’s actually crazy (and $170)
Gin & Tonic
I’ve had no problems finding flour.
Oh, and we just bought an Ankarsrum mixer we’ve been eyeing for a while. This damn thing will end up being handed down to great-grandchildren, I suppose. it is *solid.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Sounds good.
To mix it up, might include a diced parsnip, leeks in place of celery and also, when simmering, put in a little fresh dill.
zeecube
Thanks for the heads up. Local stores are finally restocking shelves with bread and regular flour, but I have been searching for reasonably priced bread yeast for weeks. Last I checked online, a 4 oz jar of Fleichmann’s instant yeast was selling for $50.00 instead of usual price ($5.00).
chopper
i hooked up flour at costco, but it was a 25 lb bag. which honestly i’m going to go through anyway.
as to yeast, i found a lil at the store, but for standard bread i’m a sourdough baker anyway.
WaterGirl
@NotMax: Have you posted your corn rye recipe? I got rye flour so I could learn to make rye bread since the bakery with the only good rye bread in town closed 3 years ago. :-
edit: But I am not a sour dough person… is your corn rye bread sourdough?
VOR
My local Aldi had flour, toilet paper, and hand sanitizer in stock Sunday. Recovery has been slow but it is coming.
NotMax
@M31
Costco here always heavily stocked with 25 and 50 lb bags of flour.
Got tired of quickly going through the piddly jars of caraway seeds from the supermarket and ordered in a one pound container from Amazon a while back.
WaterGirl
@Sab:
I laughed out loud, for real.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@WaterGirl: that’s really tempting, but I’m afraid I’d wind up making a mess of the dish and my kitchen
WaterGirl
@TaMara (HFG): Is fast-rising the same as instant yeast? I always use fast-rising for my Greek Christmas Bread, but for the quarantine I got both fast-rising and regular.
I used the regular stuff for my challah bread on Sunday and it was outstanding.
VeniceRiley
@WaterGirl: Toilet paper pro tip: Ask what day/time your store typically gets deliveries. My Rite-Aid gets deliveries Friday morning. That’s where I buy my TP, as the hoarders typically eschew the small package sizes. The staff did mention they are getting less stock than usual, but they had 2 packages behind the counter by 5:30pm when I got there. I assume they had confiscated from a shopper trying for more than the 2 limit.
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: That’s weird. Someone else reported that last night, but I use Safari and it wasn’t doing it for me. I think he has Safari 11 (if I recall correctly) and I have Safari 13. It was perfectly normal for me in Chrome. In Safari, it was BIG, but it didn’t do the expand and contract thing.
But yeah, that’s what made me look at John’s Tik Toc post first when Imm first reported the spinning/freezing problem this morning. I “scheduled” that post for 5/15 in order to take it out of the equation, and poof, problem solved.
So you can all blame John for either problem. :-)
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: You should. I entered my bank info on the website and got my direct deposit about 10 days later.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The first time I made it was January and I was sick and IT FELT LIKE SO MUCH WORK. That’s all I ate for a week.
It was so good that I made it again when I finished the first batch, and it’s really quite simple. That’s why I saved my pared-down version. It’s really very simple.
Barbara
I had been buying flour and yeast before they ran out, and then picking up more as I found it. It’s still pretty desperate in the stores around here, but I was able to buy some through the New York Baker website. King Arthur, Bob’s and Arrowhead were pretty much out of everything the last time I looked, so it’s good to know that they have been able to restock to some extent.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@WaterGirl: chicken and dumplings would be perfect January food
NotMax
@WaterGirl
This is the recipe for a bread machine which makes 2 lb loaves. No idea what adaptations, if any, might be needed to make it without a machine.
Water — 1½ cup
Oil — 2 Tbsp.
Honey — 3 Tbsp.
Salt — ½ tsp.
Caraway seeds — 2 tsp.
Cornmeal — ½ cup
Rye flour — 1 cup
Bread flour — 2½ cups
Active dry yeast (not instant/rapid rise type) — 2½ tsp.
Vital wheat gluten — 3 or 4 Tbsp.
Follow directions for you machine on what order to put in ingredients. Use either medium or dark crust setting, per your preference.
Check occasionally while initial mixing cycle is taking place to see if sides of pan need to be scraped down and/or if just a little bit more water might be needed if ball of dough seems too stiff.
Sprinkle in caraway seeds at the ‘additional ingredient’ beep.
TaMara (HFG)
@WaterGirl: Yes. It was developed, I believe for things like pizza dough, which only gets one rise. Gives the good yeasty flavor. It’s favored here, because with altitude, regular yeast can do all kinds of crazy things – like rise too quickly and then dying and leaving you with a brick instead of bread. LOL Once I moved to instant yeast, I stopped having that problem.
Luciamia
Wonder if the yeast scarcity is also from people making their own homemade wine.?
jeffreyw
I bought KA flour in a 5lb bag at Kroger’s the other day. We still have yeast but I did note that they have that as well. They are starting to limit chicken to 3 packages per customer.
MuckJagger
The product page at King Arthur Flour now says it’s temporarily unavailable, as of 12:00 EDT. When it becomes available, it doesn’t appear they’ve jacked up their prices — $5 for a five-pound bag seems quite reasonable.
Rich Webb
I’m okay on AP flour but down to the last bag of bread flour. Fortunately I have some vital wheat gluten in the fridge from an “I ought to make bagels” experiment and that’s supposed to be able to “gluten-ize” AP to bread flour. Guess I’ll find out …
Ceci n est pas mon nym
We got flour and yeast last week. There’s a little bulk food store we love, and we were ecstatic a month ago when we discovered they’re set up for mail delivery. In our last order I decided to see if they had yeast and flour, and they had both. We got 3 lb of flour and I think about 3 oz of active yeast, both loose in plastic bags. My wife promptly made cinnamon buns.
I’ve been periodically making the rounds of various websites for TP as well. One day a couple weeks ago all of a sudden Target had 12-packs in stock, and so I got one. For us, that’s a 6-week-plus supply. Before I had that success, I checked out Etsy and ordered some from a shop there. There are a bunch of Etsy shops where somebody buys TP (the 250-sheet rolls like Charmin) and repackages them in an artsy covering. It’s kind of a ripoff and those rolls wouldn’t last us long but I don’t mind supporting artists and it gives us an emergency supply that will last us at least a couple of weeks.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Especially when you are fighting a bug. :-)
WaterGirl
@NotMax: I have everything but the wheat gluten. I let my bread machine make the dough for everything, then I bake the loaves myself in the oven.
Not sure if I can get away without using the wheat gluten. I know there’s more gluten in bread flour than regular, so maybe I can get away with it?
WaterGirl
@MuckJagger: It’s the 3-lb. bag, not the 5-lb. bag – I just checked and it’s still available.
northlander
King Arthur? What kind of top 1000 left-wing blog is this?
You should be buying your flour from the only state-owned, quasi-socialist flour mill in the United States: the North Dakota State Mill and Elevator.
Pro-tip: if you’re baking bread, don’t use the all-purpose. Go with the bread flour. Higher protein (uses ND-grown hard red spring wheat, the Cadillac of wheats) which helps with rising.
https://www.ndmill.com/index.cfm/nd-mill-store/product-listing/bread-flour/
WaterGirl
@Rich Webb: King Arthur Flour also has 5-lb. bags of Bread Flour in stock.
Yutsano
@NotMax:As you know: once you get a recipe and you make changes to it at that point it’s yours. Recipes are not straitjackets. They’re at best guidelines*.
*applies to cooking recipes only. Baking recipes are better thought of as scientific formulas that require rigourous application.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
It’ll come out a loaf without the additional gluten but texture will lean more to the crumbly side.
BTW, have tried making it with both dark and with light rye flours. Either will do but IMHO the light is better.
laura
I scored a can of Italian yeast last week and yesterday was able to buy a 5lb bag of gold medal AP and a can of dried buttermilk and a quart of liquid buttermilk. Spouse is using a mix of AP and bread flour to stretch the supplies. I felt to guilty to grab a couple of rolls of bum wad since we’ve got a 9 pack in the closet. The ethics of grocery shopping – who knew it’d be A Thing?
WaterGirl
@NotMax: I got 3-lb. bags of Rye Flour and Rye Flour Blend because I didn’t have recipes yet and didn’t know what I would need.
I’ll have to see which is darker. thanks
Barbara
I made Julia Child’s recipe for baguettes last week and if you have an entire day, it is well worth your time. I will be doing the King Arthur baguette recipe this weekend. Julia gives the dough three separate lengthy rises. King Arthur goes with an initial overnight yeast sponge, with two separate rises the following day. When it comes to bread, there is no substitute for time.
Paul T
When all y’all give up on baking bread I will take your unwanted bread flour. You pay for shipping. Think of all the flour waste across the country! Email me!
/s
Miki
My local Aldi has done well at stocking flour and my freezer is still stocked with yeast. So yesterday I transformed some flour, yeast, salt, sugar, milk and butter into Pull-Apart Dinner Rolls. My house still smells fabulous.
White & Gold Purgatorian
@Josie: The biggest difference between using Instant Yeast vs. Active Dry is that you can just mix the Instant directly in with your other recipe ingredients. No proofing the yeast required.
White & Gold Purgatorian
@Luciamia: Winemakers mostly use yeasts intended for winemaking. Newbies may be using bread yeast, but it won’t give great results.
Origuy
I’ve seen TP at small stores that mostly sell liquor. You might also find it in Mexican or Asian stores, which are all around me in East San Jose. I think the hoarders only hit the supermarkets and warehouse stores.
I got some whole-wheat King Arthur flour at an Asian supermarket.
opiejeanne
@WaterGirl:
Where are you seeing the 3lb bags of KA flour? Their site doesn’t have any AP unbleached available. Do they have a store other than the online one?
The last Instacart guy asked if he could substitute KA all-purpose for the Kroger all-purpose, and I agreed. He asked while he was shopping and looking at the shelf. What he brought me when I unpacked the bags 3 days later was a third brand’s self-rising. Gah!
I know, there are nice things that can be made with SR like really great biscuits. Fabulous biscuits. If I only had some cream. I wonder if I can substitute half-and-half.
WereBear
Why I make gluten-free cheesecake.
Actually, there are a lot of good reasons :)
Just out of the oven: fresh ORANGE. Man, does it smell good!
White & Gold Purgatorian
Since we’re talking bread, Breadtopia is once again taking orders for grain (and flour) and Turkey Red wheat is back in stock, for any jackals who grind their own. I ordered a bucket of wheat as soon as They sent the email last Thursday and the poor UPS guy dropped it off yesterday. We had been buying 5 or 10 pounds at a time but got caught a little short by the panic, plus we are now baking all our bread and just going through more wheat, so 35 pounds doesn’t seem excessive. It will keep pretty much forever and represents only a 6 month supply at our current rate of baking. We’ve had our grain mill about 5 years and it has turned out to be a great kitchen investment, for both healthier and tastier baked goods. If you’ve been thinking of getting into home milling, just do it.
WaterGirl
@opiejeanne:
3-lb King Arthur Unbleached All Purpose Flour
edit: I added links up top for the flour and the yeast.
WaterGirl
@opiejeanne:
I think NO is the answer on that. Every baking recipe I have that calls for cream says don’t use half-and-half. So that’s my guess.
WaterGirl
@WereBear: Is that the recipe you posted a couple of days ago?
WaterGirl
@White & Gold Purgatorian: I have never heard of them!
White & Gold Purgatorian
@WaterGirl: They have a lot of great recipes and bread tips in addition to the store. There are not too many suppliers for whole grains, especially if you prefer the older wheat varieties as we do. Since we bought the mill I’ve tried wheat from several places but Breadtopia’s is the most consistent and the cleanest. Bluebird grain farm also has nice clean grains, but they don’t grow Turkey Red, which has become our favorite for bread. Not biscuits, but loaf bread. We prefer Einkorn for biscuits. The aroma of the freshly ground wheat and buttermilk is just fantastic, even before baking.
WaterGirl
@White & Gold Purgatorian: Ah. So one doesn’t buy ready-to-go flour from them, but whole grains to grind yourself?
(I apparently didn’t read carefully to catch that first time around.)
White & Gold Purgatorian
@WaterGirl: They sell flour, too, for those who don’t grind their own. I believe they usually offer all purpose flour as well as harder to find single grain flours.
Feathers
When swapping out yeasts, 1.25 tsp Active Yeast = 1 tsp Instant Yeast. And the rise times will be different, so keep an eye on it.
If you are watching cooking videos while quarantining, this Understanding Yeast vid from Food52. It is 50 minutes long, so cozy on up and enjoy. She prefers active dry yeast, but the instant is tasty enough for me and I like the fast rises.
Can I subtweet a knitter friend? She is always going on about paying for patterns and editors and such, but is now complaining that her stay at home baking isn’t turning out. She links to the recipe and it’s always from some random website and for something fancy. I read through the recipe and shudder. I’d never bake something that suggested you could do it this way or that way. Why don’t people realize that things produced in commercial bakeries that nobody makes at home isn’t because of some vast conspiracy, but because they require commercial equipment or ingredients? Sigh.
LongHairedWeirdo
I actually saw King Arthur flour on the shelves of Target, which was gratifying – I’d have been grateful for Gold Medal (a “nothing really wrong with it” flour, but I trust King Arthur more for bread), or even store brand, which would (at least) keep my sourdough culture fed.
oatler.
Whenever there was a blizzard warning in Illinois people would panic-buy flour, milk butter and sugar, as if they wanted to reenact “Little House on the Prairie”.
JeanneT
I had flour in my weekend pick up order and the shopper sent me a question about whether I’d take organic rather than regular KA bread flour. Yup! And they had white whole wheat in stock, so now I’m set for the next few weeks. Tomorrow I will get my sourdough up and running, now that I have some of Alain’s starter (thanks Auntie Beak) AND some spiffy new jars to keep it in. It should be ready to bake with before my jar of yeast runs out!
Kattails
Oy, I wish I hadn’t taken a break to tune in, now I’m going to be all antsy at my desk thinking about baking. I love King Arthur, and their store is about an hour and a half away, fun and dangerous to go to. General info about yeast, the SAF red is the normal instant, it’s finer and doesn’t need to be proofed, although I tend to do that out of habit. The SAF gold is designed for breads that are sweet or longer rising, like my Christmas breads or sourdough. Keeps forever in the freezer.
@M31: That’s a great tip, hadn’t thought of it, it will be what, 25 or 50 pounds? They’ve probably all got tons of assorted stuff in stock. Home storage would be the issue here.
Cornmeal: Love corn muffins, the local coop has a wonderful, floury cornmeal. I keep it in the fridge or freezer. Don’t like the gritty, polenta-style cornmeal for muffins. Picky, picky.
Very low availability in my area for flours, so I’ve grabbed when I spotted some, even if it’s just 2 pounds of whole wheat.
Who said they got an Emile Henry pot? Can’t find backtracking…Please report after the test run. Gorgeous and will last you a couple of incarnations.
M31
@NotMax: Yeah my local Costco only had bleached which is fine in a pinch but I wanted unbleached, and also saw I could get super high protein bread flour (by KA but more than their retail bread flour) so I can really get chewy bagels, lol
M31
@Kattails: I got some 3- and 4-gallon foodsafe containers from the restaurant supply too, so hopefully that will protect the flour from bugs. LOL the lids came from one warehouse and arrived today but the actual containers are coming tomorrow from another state?! what
Also, my friends will be relieving me of quite a bit of it, PHEW.
Got a pound of yeast too — if you put yeast in glass it will last in the freezer for at least a year
opiejeanne
@WaterGirl: Thanks.
opiejeanne
@WaterGirl: I think we broke the KA website. I’m getting a version of “page not found” when I try to add storage or anything else to the cart, or try to check out.
WaterGirl
@opiejeanne: The King Arthur website seems to be better now. Is it better for you?
Another Scott
@northlander: Thanks for the pointer! I think I was able to order some flour there, but they say they have to call to get CC information. I guess we’ll see…
Cheers,
Scott.
Mom Says I*m Handsome
Thanks for the King Arthur tip. I got myself a couple of bags of the basic, plus a bag of their pasta flour — my inaugural batch of homemade pasta made with my new Kitchenaid roller set was a dud both for the texture (very gummy, more like kluski) and saltiness (“Salt your pasta water like the saltiest ocean water ever!” — screw you, Nasrat, that ain’t right).
And I’m working to revive my sourdough starter that I bought from Alain. It never took off properly with his instructions, so I’m cheating with a 1/2 tsp of sugar and I’ve switched to boiled/cooled water (chlorine levels in Denver have been increasing to fight lead leaching and to give our Freedummies a chance to recover from their brainworms).
Bjam
@ruemara: We ordered 3 Mega packages of TP from Walmart with free shipping. Took 2 days to get to our house.
Marilole
@ruemara: they are eating bread and sh.*tting. lol