For years I have used Gold Medal unbleached flour for making French bread and a host of other breads. Due to their recent problem all the Gold Medal has been pulled from the shelves, and our local groceries don't have any unbleached flour of any brand. I received a coupon for the house brand of bread flour. I've never used "bread" flour, so will be trying it out tomorrow on French bread to compare with the unbleached version. Are there any main brand unbleached flours out there? If you use bread flour vs. regular flour, tell me your experiences and opinions, please.
King Arthur makes an unbleached flour....finding it in stores is a bit of a chore, you would need to call stores and ask about it unless you have some time to drive around looking for it..... but you can order it on line too. Also, Bob's Red Mill has it too. I've never used bread flour, always unbleached Gold Medal at least after it became available many years ago until then I used regular Gold Medal. I had been reading all the Adele Davis books and changed to unbleached as soon as I could find it. I probably have the only two bags of safe unbleached Gold Medal in the country, have 2 in the freezer with an earlier Use By date than the recalled bags.
I bake my bread in a bread machine and ONLY use Unbleached (Rogers Unbleached). As an aside - my bread machine recipe for a 2 pound loaf: 2 tbsp. virgin olive oil 1 1/3c HOT water 1 1/2 tsp salt 2 Tbsp sugar (or honey) 3 1/3c unbleached flour then I add seed on top of this - about 1/2 tsp (more or less) each per the 1 loaf: white sesame, black sesame, psyllium fibre, chia seed, flax seed and poppy seed. On top of this I put 1 tbsp. yeast and bake on RAPID BAKE for 2 hours (light crust). Really wonderful bread that always comes out well in a high loaf. Hope you can find some unbleached soon ........
Check the bakeries in your area. The small bakeries would be your best bet. That is all we ever used as the bakery I worked in was an organic bakery and everything we made was from scratch. No mixes whatsoever. I buy my flour from the bakery in 50 pound bags. Good luck.
I buy my flour in 50# bags from GFS or the local farm market up the road from me. Usually I buy bread flour. I honestly don't know if it is bleached, but I am thinking not. I don't normally buy anything bleached if I can help it.
Over this part of the world we have unbleached bread flour and I used it to make all sorts of bread including French breads. But when I don't have bread flour I just use regular flour. Both kind of flour works for bread. From my experience when I use regular or all purpose flour, I have to reduce the amount of water if not the dough will be wet. From my understanding bread flour is high protein flour and regular flour is medium protein flour while cake flour is low protein. There is something to do with the gluten level too which I've forgotten what it is.
Thanks for all the good suggestions. I can't check with the small local bakeries--I'm the small local bakery! We don't have Bulk Barn here, but I could get a neighbor who belongs to check Costco for me. I'll see if the local grocery will get some King Arthur or Bob's Red Mill unbleached flour for me. Toni, if you open your freezer and your two bags of unbleached Gold Medal are missing, you'll never prove I did it--I'll wear gloves! This is not an earth-shattering problem, but I do like to know my ingredients, and I get set in my ways and want what I've used for years. I do appreciate all the good suggestions.
It didn't even dawn on me when I posted last night that I needed a new bag of flour for making bread today... so off to the market I went and picked up a bag of... high gluten flour. It came out of Canada and the tiny label says... bleached. bummer. oh well. I just won't fuss to much as I have already opened it and started using it. Next time I will try to remember to ask if there is any unbleached flour available.
Carolyn, I made pull-apart rolls and five small loaves of bread today. That bread flour rises quickly! The recipe I use has the first rise for an hour, but after 30 minutes, it was up to the top of the bowl. Then the second rise, after being stirred down, usually takes 1 1/2 hours in the refrigerator. After an hour it was up to the top again. The texture and taste was about the same (I like a coarser texture, so next time I may stir a little more vigorously) and it baked up fine. Probably no one else would notice, but the texture was a bit too "fine" for me, and the rise time threw me off my usual schedule.
I never know from week to week what my schedule can be as I am making bread. I am interrupted so often...I have no schedule. I have been making bread all day and didn't notice any difference from the last bag to this bag of flour. 12 loaves of potato bread and 6 loaves of garlic bubble bread, smells soooo good here right now. The timer is beeping at me as I type for the garlic bubble bread... uuuummmm yuuummmmmmm!
Jane, our stores have the Gold Medal Unbleached that was processed after the suspect batch. Your store should be getting some any day, if not ask them why not.
Whats the problem with Gold Medal flour ? Is unbleached flour better to use ? I have always used regular AP or bread flour. Summers here are too busy to make bread. I do that in the fall/winter. And what is garlic bubble bread,,that one sounds so good I might make it in the 100 degree summer.
Mart there was a recall of some Gold Medal flour for E.Coli contamination. Regular flour is bleached then enriched with the vitamins and minerals that the bleaching process kills. Bleaching is strictly to make a whiter bread, because for many, many years the whiter the bread the richer the person who can afford it......not so white bread was eaten by the poorer people.
Oh ! I didn`t hear about the E coli. I thought there might be something the unbleached flour had that regular flour did not. I care less about the color than the taste.
