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Submitted by alex on March 19, 2009 - 2:49am Hi, from London, UK. My first time.Hi I am a student from London, UK. I only just started to take bread baking more seriously last week. I managed to bake up to 5 batches of baguettes, since using different techniques. I found that everything turned out as it was supposed to, apart from the taste of the bread at the end. They all taste different, which i guess is right, but not how the book describes them to taste or how i tasted them from actual bakeries. As a result I started earlier this week to cultivate liquid levain and maybe next week stiff dough levain to see whether or not that will make a difference to the taste. I also looked around online and as a result stumbled across this site/forum and was amazed by the fact that there were so many bread lovers here, and everyone discussing their ideas amongst each other. Alex
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London flour
Hi Alex! This is a great forum and masses of excellent advice here! Some of it differs - I prefer a stiff starter, some prefer liquid. But all work well.
Flour in London - I'm from Guildford area, so am in London a lot. But any health food shop will sell good flour - and most supermarkets. I tend to use Dove farm organic white, wholemeal, spelt, rye and kamut for my bread - 30% white, 30% wholemeal and the rest adding up to the remaining 40% in whatever proportion takes my fancy.
If you want to make a visit to Ladbroke Grove area, Planet Organic is an excellent shop for flour / bread etc. Tesco will give you free yeast - try the bakery counter and ask if they have any yeast.
And here's a link to an excellent bakery in London who I believe actually run baking courses
http://www.lighthousebakery.co.uk/
Best of luck!
Andrew
Thank you
Hi Andrew
Thank you very much for your advice and information. I'll try a look around and see how it goes. Once i get the hang of using liquid levain i will try my hand on the stiff dough starter, which i think i too will prefer.
Thank you for the link, i think it will be very useful. :)
Once again thank you.
Alex
Hi Alex
I second Andrew's recommendation of the Dove's Farm range - the fine plain white flour is milled from soft wheat and is quite close to the classic french T55 flour used in baguettes.
Also check out the waitrose organic, stoneground range which has become my mainstay for bread baking and starter maintenance. I'd recommend trying the 'plain' version before the 'strong bread' version of each flour as you may find the plain flour to be plenty strong for baking most breads. (if you want really strong flour, they do carry a canadian wheat flour which weighs in at about 15% protein!)
Other brands to look out for are Shipton Mill and Bacheldre which prove quite popular with bakers. They do tend to be a bit pricier though.
FP
Hi Alex
I've just joined this forum and can also indorse the Dove's Farm range. My family's current favourite is their Malthouse Bread Flour although I've also tried several others. Of all the dried yeasts out there Dove's Quick Yeast gives me the best and most consistent results, but your mileage may vary!
Allinsons range of flours are also very good and widely available.
As mentioned, they are all available from most good health food shops and supermarkets, particularly Waitrose. And whilst on the subject of Waitrose, I like their very strong Canadian white and wholemeal flours for plain loaves.
You should also look out for flour from the smaller independent mills, often available from health food shops and, if you visiting the boonies, farm shops.