where am I?
French bread flour
Answer
Dear Joyce
I checked with my friends at my all-time favourite London Bakers, Baker and Spice at 46 Walton Street. They are convieniently situated just around the corner from the Knightsbridge Aga shop and well worth a visit if you`ve never been. They meticulously source all their ingredients and recommend The Bread Factory, who should be able to recommend a suitable supplier of French bread flour depending on where in the UK you live.
I have tested a number of bread machines and found most of the better makes give very good results. Having said that, if you have a Kitchen Aid mixer, together with an Aga top oven, which is the nearest you can have in a domestic kitchen to a baker`s brick oven, you are guaranteed absolute success and have one less gadget to find a home for. I like to flick some cold water from a clean wet hand into the Aga oven just before closing the door to create a steamy oven to encourage the best ever rise.
As well as experimenting with French flour, I have had some of the best results ever working with Canadian hard wheat that is increasingly easy to find in the bread flour section in supermarkets. Waitrose is your best starting point, and it is well worth seeking out.
The other bread discovery I have made so far this year has been the joy of working my way through all the recipes in the above Baker and Spice`s quite excellent "Baking with Passion" breadbook, by Dan Lepard and Richard Whittington, published by Quadrille. I had only just finished "Making Bread at Home" by Tom Jaine (he of the Carved Angel restaurant fame) which was itself breathtaking in its approach. Both of these books are an absolute must for the serious home baker.
Happy baking!
Richard Maggs
THE AGA COOKERY DOCTOR
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Please can you tell me where I can buy French bread flour for a bread machine? Thank You Joyce