another newbie, Thailand

Fluffy stuff!      Welcome to TFL!   

You can turn that fluff around in a jiffy!  Try using water instead of milk and oil and cut out the sugar or reduce to just a spoonful. 

You can raise the protein of the flour using an egg white in your liquids... worth trying if your flour is low protein.  If not already doing it,  run the flour through a fine sieve just before using.  

The "thing about packages of yeast is that they vary from country to country.  Roughly, a package contains about 3 level teaspoons of instant yeast or a level tablespoon, some more, some less.  I tend to use less and have open packages of the stuff around with clips on them.  Buying bulk saves money.  Just throw a plastic spoon in there (the ones from the pharmacy for cough syrup are good) and use as you see fit.  Even a little bit of yeast will multiply if given the time to do so in the dough.  You could weigh the flour and take 1 to 2 % of the flour weight and still be on target with the yeast amount.  If you add a lot of sugar to the dough 2 to 3% is a rough estimate.  

The one thing to look out for is the rapid rise yeast, the yeast that is designed to raise the dough in one rise only.  More information is provided on the small packages than the larger tins or bags.  I guess they figure if you buy bulk, you know what you're doing.  HA!  

You can look up your yeast on line and find out exactly what you're dealing with.  TIP:  freeze the main portion of the yeast and put some of it into a smaller jar for daily use if you want to prolong the life of the yeast.  

Again.  Welcome to TFL,  the place where you can talk about bread   (and a few other things)

Mini Oven

Hi neighbour! I am from the Philippines, and I can totally relate that flours here are "just" flours, AP flour to be exact. As much as I want to learn multi-grain bread baking, the only stuff we have here is a.p. flour and bread flour. Fortunately, I have found a flour supplier down town, they supply bread flours for small bakeries around. We don't have rye, spelt, buckwheat, and all other uncommon flours readily available, unlike bakers in the Western part of the Earth. I sometimes spot Bob's Red Mill flours here but they cost a lot! For Italian flours (and pizza cravings!), I have to travel 2 hours to get a hold of Tipo 0 and 00 flours. Same goes when I need flax seeds. And if cheeses would be the next topic to rant with, bring it on. We need some good cheese here! Although almost all types of yeast are available here, even the osmotolerant yeast SAF Gold which I use for my sweet breads.

Flour millers here have not yet discovered how big their potential market is for unbleached flours, especially now that many Filipinos are wanting to learn how to make their own Western bread (including me). I say Western hard-crusted and airy crumb (and sourdough too!) bread because the typical bread that we grew up with here are always soft and sweet. There are a growing number of Western retirees, expats, and tourists here who from time to time would want the bread they grew up with (your bread, Western bread). As of now, I can only think of only one artisan (Western, if I can stress that enough) bread bakery here, and their prices are too steep to be afforded by middle class people like me who would like a taste of them artisan breads.

See you around TFL. I don't see bakers actually located in Southeast Asia in these forums (or I haven't had the time to explore every sub-forum here) and I would very much want to exchange ideas with them particularly on leavening and fermenting issues because of the crazy Southeast Asian weather and temperature. And with that, good luck on your baking escapade, cooked!

Welcome to TFL, cooked! Don't give up, yet. I live in Dubai, and Bread flour is unheard of (except as organic imported variety). I kept looking around, until i found a flour mill that sells Bread flour, and rye flour in bulk (25 Kg , and 50 Kg sacks)

Khalid