Why is there still no flour?

[worldsworststepfordwife]

Is everyone constantly boredom baking? Everything else is back on the shelves here ok pastas hit and miss but you can generally get some sort but flour absolutely nothing

@Curious78 I hope your dd has a lovely birthday. My biggest one is very soon turning 13 and of course all of our original plans have been cancelled but we are trying to be creative with what we do have.

@Curious8 and @ShowofHands You could try a cheesecake instead?

Soft cheese mixed with same quantity of sugar and one egg per 250g of soft cheese. On top of biscuits crumbed and mixed with melted butter. Bake in oven 180C/gas 5

It's coming. Flour manufacturers kicked it all up a few gears and are making more than ever before. All our local shops are back well stocked with flour. And as a regular home baker (who actually does like to hand bake bread each week) I was really frustrated at there being no bread flour but we never ran out of factory baked bread so those who bought all the bread flour, I hope they actually sodding well used it!

@madroid I made cheesecake yesterday! We should be fine. Flour is actually readily available here. I buy it from our local health food shop.

It's so frustrating, DD and I bake loads, all year round and now we can't get any flour anywhere. She has asked to bake today and then she said that'll finish the flour we have so maybe we should keep it for another day.

SR in Tesco but no plain

We have a couple of cake recipes that use ground almonds instead of flour so we'll have to bake those if we can't find flour anywhere. Annoyingly a friend of MIL works in a mill and gives her free flour but we can't visit MIL at the moment.

I'm so desperate to get hold of some gram/chickpea flour (as well as other flour too of course)

Amazon was still selling it at a reasonable price yesterday (house full of coeliacs here so I was desperate for some too).

Australia saw a pasta shortage iirc due to a poor wheat harvest. I wonder if there is as much flour in the supply system as usual - and at a time of greater demand.

DH has been making a small loaf of bread in the breadmaker every day so we can have breakfast toast/lunch sandwiches without needing to go to the corner shop every day or two.

I have made cake with DS1 but we ate it afterwards.

I bake normally, and the breadmaker was my Christmas present rather than a special purchase.

I used to work in early years and have always felt uncomfortable with the use of food for messy play so don't do it myself (unless it's something thats long expired).

I'd suggest you do what a woman did in the supermarket last week (before lockdown) and go and find the man stocking chicken in the fridges and shout: "THERES NO FLOUR!! GO OUT THE BACK AND LOOK FOR FLOUR!! IVE BEEN IN HERE EVERY DAY FOR THREE DAYS AND THERES STILL NO FLOUR! WHAT IS GOING ON??!!
Nice chicken man explains all stock is out. She retorts
"YOU NEED TO SORT YOUR ORDERING OUT! TELL THEM TO ORDER FLOUR!!"

I've noticed this doesn't work so probably don't follow my advice.

I used to work in a supermarket and would be asked to go "In the back for a look" several times a day. This meant me walking through the swing doors, counting to 60, and walking back through the doors, apologising to the customer.
Truth was we didn't have much of a "back" and I knew what was in there anyway but if you try telling the customer that they don't believe you, easier just to lie.

If you haven't got any yeast try a blob of Marmite (if you have it/can bear it). It's made of yeast extract.

Try this if you want to waste some Marmite.

Marmite is not yeast, it does not contain yeast, and it will not work in place of yeast.

Flour is in short supply here too; it's like hens' teeth. We have been baking our own bread for a few months since I got a breadmaker bargain on eBay last year. I also bake relatively regularly all year round.

Finding any type of flour has been challenging.

Has it all been diverted to the pasta making factories?

Lidl had flour earlier in the week (didn't need any) today I ventured up to the big Asda (needed things they don't stock locally and wanted to make sure that the car battery was recharged) no flour, no wholemeal bread, no crushed garlic, no chapattis, no samosas (yes I wanted to make Indian food, looks like its pasta again for tea!)

Our local mill say that there is no shortage of flour but they are struggling to bag it up and process the volume of orders. They usually sell online but the website can't cope at the moment and is currently down.

Ask the cashier when their main delivery comes in. There was none in Waitrose on a Sunday afternoon, and the cashier suggested there would be a lot more on the shelves on Monday morning.

Apparently they're struggling to source enough packaging for flour. Same with eggs.

I saw flour in our village shop today.

@nakedavengerreturns thats just nasty,
why do dickheads feel they can get their anger at the poor staff as if making orders is their responsibility... ?? They'll only take out whats in stock, they dont "lay" flour

If suppliers are struggling, supermarkets have no choice. Dont bully the weakest links

Btw, I don’t use normal flour as Dd is coeliac. Can’t get hold of gluten free stuff.

But in my cupboard I have rice flour and unopened gram flour. Can I use these in pancakes? Or even in cakes?

@VivaLeBeaver i saw an american recipe that used almond flour, it turned out alright, nothing like a proper american pancake... Im sure youtube has plenty of alternatives

Thanks. Don’t think I have almond flour, also have coconut flour. I’ll get googling and search YouTube. Think when dd got diagnosed I brought them all and they’ve been unused since! 😁