flour in Nigella books

11 replies

barney1craft · 26/09/2008 08:55

Does anyone know which flour Nigella is referring to when she just says 'flour'. Some of the recipes in Nigella Express say 'plain flour' and some say 'flour'. Am i correct to assume that 'flour' refers to self-raising?

OP posts:

Hassled · 26/09/2008 09:04

I've wondered this - I take it all to mean Plain Flour, as she's always quite heavy on the raising agents - bicarb, baking powder etc all seem to feature a lot in her baking. From which I've deduced she's not using SR Flour - but have never been entirely sure.

mrspnut · 26/09/2008 09:06

It's plain flour, there is an explanation in the front of one of them I think that she only buys plain flour and caster sugar or some such nonsense.

onceinalifetime · 26/09/2008 09:06

I think she just means plain flour but she normally recommends 00 which is a very fine flour - available in Waitrose.

Winebeforepearls · 26/09/2008 12:04

She means plain. If it needs to be SR, it will/should say.

The 00 flour is hard to find, and not really necessary.

Kathyis6incheshigh · 26/09/2008 12:07

She says in How To Eat that she only keeps 00 and sr in the house - she has this thing about doing pastry with 00, which I tried and it was an absolute disaster - it shrunk far too much.
00 is pasta flour - it's finely milled but also high in gluten, which is all wrong for pastry. Just use normal plain.

FluffyMummy123 · 26/09/2008 12:07

Message withdrawn

NoblesseOblige · 26/09/2008 12:09

nigella is good in principle but wanky in application. whats with all the pate sucree business?

i always use smartprice plain at 35p a bag with an evil grin on

JaneLumley · 26/09/2008 13:40

Save money and buy a good US baking book instead. Nigella cribs all her recipes from those. All the good ones, anyway.

littlestrawberry · 26/09/2008 14:41

The 00 flour is too expensive and makes no difference in my opinion. I used to buy it but stopped due to budget, now buy cheapy flour, haven't noticed a difference.

onceinalifetime · 28/09/2008 20:58

Never used 00 either - I haven't got the space (or motivation) for different sorts of flour and other rarified ingredients she comes up with.

I do find it amusing that her husband supposedly lost four stone by only eating eggs

PinkTulips · 28/09/2008 21:07

i use plain spelt for everything as sr spelt doesn't seem to exist and just add a tsp of baking powder if a recipe says sr. haven't noticed any problems yet.

sr flour is a marketing scam imo, wouldn't buy it now even if i could buy wheat flour, would just use plain flour for everything.

Flip