I made some yeasted corn bread today. It called for honey. I didn't have any, so I used some orange syrup I had in the refrigerator.

The bread rose like a hot air ballon, over and over again, and made some very light and tasty loaves. 

A few months ago, I had some leftover hot chocolate, or rather the hot chocolate sludge left at the bottom of the pan. Feeling experimental, I made chocolate bread with it. That bread rose like a hot air balloon too. 

I'm wondering if adding the sugar as a syrup rather than a solid means that the dissolved sugar is more available to the yeast, and that the yeast grow faster. I went googling for info on the subject, but didn't find any. What do y'all think?

I'm interested in buying some Whole Wheat (High Frontier Whole Wheat) from Rocky Mountain Milling in Platteville (www.rockymountainmilling.com). They will sell to individuals in quantities of 50lbs and it is organic. I talked to them at one point about pricing and even with driving out there it was still a good price. I don't know what their current pricing is but if anyone is interested let's talk off list about it. Email me at .

Hello everyone,

I'n curious as to the best sources for buying flour- catalogs, local stores, small and large chain stores. Are any store brand flours working well for you? I'm interested in both plain old wheat (whole and white) and more exotic flours as well. Prices are so high now, I'm wondering if anyone has found a fairly reasonable price. Right now I buy King Arthur AP and white whole wheat at Trader Joes for $3.99 for 5lbs. That's the best price I've found in the Los Angeles area. King Arthur has one distributer here in Vernon, but gas prices make the cost equal. The rest of my flour comes from Whole Foods. Thanks.

Marni

I have been trying to find durum flour for a while now, exclusive of buying it from KA and/or paying as much for shipping as for the product itself. I finally was able to purchase it through my local health food store. Only catch is that I had to purchase 50#. I like to bake bread but 50# bag is too much. Anyone living in The Tacoma Seattle WA area and would like to share, please respond to . I paid about $65.

Tony Lamberti 

I'm going on a road trip...

CO; NE, Chicago, IL; RT 66 to Santa Monica, CA.

Then, I'm travelling up PCH (Hwy 1).  It's a no-brainer that I'll find starter in San Francisco (though I'd love an address or two!;-D).  I'll follow Hwy 1 to OR then on to WA.  I will then continue through ID, MT, and WY, the going home to CO.

Anywhere I can find starter (that tastes of that location...AKA SF sourdough) would be much appreciated.

Don't worry about the exact city.  I can filter those.

sadears59@comcast.net

Thanks,

Steph

I am contemplating making a sweet bun recipe that was taken from the Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook 1970 edition (I believe it was published in the USA?). It calls for "a cake of yeast".

I've searched around the internet trying to find out just how much a "cake of yeast" weighs. Most sites I've found agree and say that a cake of yeast weighs .6 oz; one says it weighs .06 oz (!) and another says it weighs 1 oz.

This would mean an equivalent of either 3tsp, 1/3tsp, or 3.4 tsp active dry yeast. Rather a large difference, I'd sya...

I'm guessing that .06oz .6oz is the right one but which is it, please?

-Elizabeth, in Toronto Canada where compressed yeast is not the easiest thing to find; one local deli sells cakes of yeast in 50 and 100gm pieces.

P.S. DON'T get me started on the use of loose measurement terms "packets", "packages", "cakes", "some", "dollop" ...

(edited to fix typo)

I ended up with a ton of all purpose flour, and I'm noticing it's definately not performing as well as bread flour, I was wondering if it would be worth it to buy some gluten to add? would it improve performance enought to worth it? Or should I just stick with the all purpose and blend it into bread flour over a long long time :P

Outside of ordering online (and I really don't want to do that) any ideas on purchasing retail now hard to get high gluten flour in the Washington, D.C.-Virginia-Maryland area?

Thanks!

Neal Lavon
Takoma Park, MD
USA

Hi,

Just moved to the Boston area and am looking for good local sources for flour and grains.  I've searched the forum archives and haven't found any local sources other than the typical mail order sources.

In particular, I'm looking for good sources of stone-ground flour (wheat, rye), along with whole or cracked grains (again, wheat and rye particularly).  Strongly prefer organic products.  I expected there to be a "health food store" that offers these kinds of things, as it did in Cape Town where I've just moved from.  However, I've not been very successful at finding these.

At present, I use Arrowhead Mills from my local Whole Foods, but only the WW comes in a larger packet and they don't offer any rye flour or cracked/whole grains. 

Thanks in advance for any pointers you can offer. 

Cheers,

 MammaT

Has anyone a good source, NYC or interweb, for real "course meal" pumpernickel flour?  Old world style like once used for bagels and pumpernickel bread?  KA and Hodgsons aren't quite what I'm thinking.