Around the same time as toilet paper, kitchen rolls, rice and pasta disappeared from the shops, flour disappeared as well. I did manage to buy some before the hoarding began but didn’t know I should have bought more at the time. One day we looked in six stores but the shelves were empty. And the shelves remain empty even today, with a few exceptions and those exceptions are sold out quickly. It’s not a question of the country having run out of flour. It’s the packaging that can’t keep up with us consumers. The packaging lines for bakeries and restaurants which have been closed for weeks are difficult or impossible to change over to pack in consumer sizes. Now two supermarket chains have begun to pack from big bags into smaller bags. One of them is too far away and the one close by didn’t have any. All these flours are unfamiliar to me, being used to Finnish flour. There is plain flour, strong white bread flour, very strong white bread flour, strong wholemeal bread flour, strong brown flour, granary, rye (right, this is familiar), wholemeal spelt and stoneground spelt. And these are just the ones I have managed to buy. Oh, and self-raising flour, which I never use. One of the most interesting places to buy flour is the chemists. They stock the flour from a local mill that doesn’t trade on-line nor do they have a shop at the mill. The chemists also sells flip-flops, greeting cards, shampoos, handbags and other gift items, sewing stuff, memory sticks and there’s the village post office and oh, they do sell medicine. Prices. There’s a store selling strong bread flour at £3.49 for 1.5kg. Compare that with Lidl’s £0.45 for 1.5kg. You just have to buy what you find. Ok, so the more expensive is an artisan flour, but the cheaper flour makes perfectly good bread as well. Although at £0.45 per 1.5kg, who makes a profit at any point? After many a trial I have finally come to terms with that gas oven. I asked a baker and she said to lower the temperature from what I’m used to with an electric oven and just to bake for longer. So baking bread it’s gas mark 7, first 50 min, then flip the loaves around and another 20 min. Even cinnamon buns need a longer time than in an electric oven and they need the flip-over as well. (Kuva leivistä ja korvareista). You will note I’m not using white pearl sugar as one does in Finland. It’s not available here. I like using demerara sugar instead, only now even that is sold out. So I use golden cane sugar. Making cinnamon buns I learned to use a glass bottle as a rolling pin. (And before we bought a pastry brush I used my finger.) I like it so much that I think I will start using one in Finland as well. My grandmother used a wine bottle masterfully. Someone must have given it to her as she was teetotal. Apart from the odd, purely medicinal cognac.
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AuthorI'm Piisa and I will be sharing with you my thoughts on this and that, maybe even on whatever. Archives
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