Flour and yeast- have you managed to source any?

[AudaCityLimits]

I always bake our bread, but am unable to find flour or yeast in local shops. Absolutely zilch.
Are you able to get hold of any where you are?
Do you know of somewhere I can order any online?

@MulticolourMophead

Start in the morning. Put three tablespoons of wholemeal flour into a clean jar. Add three-four tepid tablespoons of boiled water. Stir vigorously. It should look like a thin paste. Put a lid on but not screwed shut, it needs to breathe.

Put in a warm spot. 18-24 degrees. A sunny window is ideal (but not too hot though). You might need to move it around the house as the day goes.

At night, hot water cupboard if you have one.

Next day, add three more tablespoons of flour, three more of water. Repeat the process.

By day three you should see bubbles appear. At least once a week use some of the starter to make a loaf, or pancakes or crumpets or muffins.

I've managed to grab the odd bag of flour, for any purpose but it's a case of get what's there, when it's there, whether it's plain, Sr or bread flour. Not looked for yeast as I have a packet of doves farm on the go and another unopened one already in my Cupboard of Wonder.

I ordered 16kg of plain Shipton Mill flour off Amazon last week - I happened to look at the right time. There were 6 bags available when I looked and none left by the time I bought it 30 seconds later! It should turn up this week.

We queued 90 minutes for the supermarket on Thursday morning & also managed to get some bread flour, but no yeast, that way. It was the only flour available on the shelf.

I've found a nifty way around the problem. I'm a vegan (put down those pitchforks ) and make seitan out of pure gluten powder, so I have a lot of pure gluten here. There is no wheat flour available as far as I can see, but there is some rye flour or gluten-free varieties. I've simply been adding 10g gluten powder per 100g gluten free flour; hey presto, you have flour with gluten, suitable for baking. Gluten is available on Amazon and not too dear. IF you can't find any flour at all, then ground-up oats will work too (again, just add gluten).

There's always plain and self raising flour in our local Aldi. I don't bake bread so I don't know about yeast.

@Harakeke Thanks, I'll give it a go.

I still have some yeast but have made soda bread and a very acceptable beer bread.
I might try sou dough if I have enough flour,if I make a small amount it should be ok.

My local Tesco has 2.5kg bags of self raising soda bread flour in, it doesn't seem to sell out as quickly. I'm not sure if it's stocked widely outside NI but if you can get your hands on buttermilk or make some with milk and lemon juice then that's an easy bread.

They've got strong bread flour going in and out of stock too depending on what time you're there.

The petrol station up on the main road from me posts a stock list every day and always has flour.

Google for yeastless bread, plenty of recipes.

I got yeast in my Tesco shop last week too.

I got fresh yeast from our last Ocado order and we have a huge bag of chapati flour. We did get a Shipton delivery slot (yet to arrive) and I got some sourdough starter from a friend too.

@MulticolourMophead good luck! I forgot to say, you use whole meal (or even spelt) first off because it has natural yeast in it to get it started. Once your yeast colony is strong you can use plain old white.

How do you make sourdough bread from the starter? Thanks.

A local café has managed to get big sacks of flour from their suppliers, and fresh yeast. They take orders and bag it up in smaller quantifies. I managed to get enough flour to see us through a few weeks and found boxes of dried yeast in the supermarket 2 weeks ago (lucky 😉).

I've manage to keep my yeast going- keep a lump of dough back from the loaf. Feed with flour and water every day. It gets beautifully bubbly.

Use the whole lot in a loaf, adding flour and water as needed to get the texture right. Keep a lump of that dough, and start again.

@Harakeke Thanks for the tip. As it happens, I have some wholemeal, as DS needed it for his GCSE Food Tech.

How do you make sourdough bread from the starter?
I've been using the King Arthur flour website.

@drspouse what time of day did you get it? They say they release delivery slots at any time but I'm wondering if it's just early morning.

Just got my yeast in my delivery, can't believe it. First time in months I've been able to buy any. From tesco

Flour yes, yeast no.

We found a local mill that delivered - 16 kg sack of bread flour.

There only did really huge bags of yeast so DH order else where but it hasn't arrived yet. We still have some left - but might try making sourdough starter again if it dosen't come soon.

I've been hunting for gluten free fast yeast but no luck. DD is coeliac and the chances of our food delivery actually including any gf bread is slim. Lots of the fast yeast has added gluten so it's tricky.

I managed to get some flour and yeast from Wessex Mill's online shop, but that was a couple of weeks back. They only open their online shop up on selective days now. I also recommend Shipton Mill and FWP Matthew's Mill, but I think both are currently dealing with a backlog. Second suggestions of trying wholesalers, but also try asking at your local bakery because the one near me sells all kinds of flours etc in addition to the finished bread products.

Yeast available on Amazon. I got flour from Amazon too but it looks like that supply has dried up. I get 2 bags a week from Ocado.

Lil's near us has had flour, bread flourbut no yeast to be had anywhere

I've just had the flour that I ordered from Marriage's delivered after 4 weeks I'd just got to the end of my store cupboard supply, so it was in the nick of time.

I'm making the New York Times no knead bread because a) it's fabulous and b) it uses 1/4 tsp of yeast per loaf, which means I have enough for probably 200 loaves