KAF reports 2000% increase in online flour sales

[Mike Nolan]

Hy Vee had SAF Blue (IDY) in a 1 pound package today, they also had Red Star cake yeast in 2 ounce packages in the butter section. I bought one even though it was insanely overpriced ($2.99), just because I've got one or two recipes I'd like to try with cake yeast.

[skeptic7]

I got to two stores today. Both were essentially out of flour. Trader Joe was out of butter too. I didn't see any yeast in either store, but I wasn't looking in the right place for cake yeast.

[Italiancook]

Mike, what is the purpose of SAF Blue yeast? I have SAF red and gold yeast but never heard of the blue.

[Mike Nolan]

It may have been what everyone else calls SAF Red, I don't normally buy SAF yeast, so I'm not familiar with their packaging.

I recently learned that there is a SAF Purple yeast, intended for fast rise commercial uses. I doubt it shows up in stores.

[BakerAunt]

According to this article in The Atlantic (they allow a few free reads per month), the flour shortage is continuing:

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/05/why-theres-no-flour-during-coronavirus/611527/

I'm not sure that I buy their argument that more baking was going on in the 1980s and that women moving into careers led to less baking at home. My husband actually baked bread in graduate school, but it went by the by once he started his career.

If the article is correct, however, the flour shortage will not be ending any time soon.

[skeptic7]

Nice article. The quarentine has given people the time and incentive to try and retry baking. Baking one batch of biscuits is either easy -- like when you did it in Girl Scouts -- or impossible -- the first several times you did it alone -- but now people have the time to try batch after batch until things work and no way to throw up their hands and go to the store when the first couple don't work.
Its easier baking when there aren't the time constraints but its harder not having friends to eat extra donuts. It'd be nice having friends to sympathize at ugly but tasty donuts, but I didn't have any of those before the coronavirus epidemic.

[Mike Nolan]

Here the flour shelves aren't empty, the last time I was at Hy-Vee they had lot of KAF AP but I didn't see any KAF Bread flour, and they had several other brands including two house brands.

My older son has been doing baking out of the updated 'artisan bread in 5 minutes a day' book. Yesterday he baked a boule and a loaf out on his gas grill. The boule might have been a little underdone in the center, but our granddaughter thinks both are pretty good.

The last wheat storage report said wheat supplies were fairly normal. This article is forecasting a record wheat crop this season:
wheat supply

There may continue to be intermittent channel shortages, as this is the time of year when home flour usage is usually at a low point.

[Italiancook]

My dad probably wouldn't have taken this route with his one and only donut adventure during Covid-19. When I was a kid, he decided to make donuts. Have no idea what recipe he used. It made a zillion more donuts than he anticipated. Many, many more than we could eat. He gave the extra donuts to every household on the street. He seemed frantic to me. He'd pack up two or three containers of donuts and race out the door to deliver them. Then come back to the house, pack up more and race out for more deliveries, until he had passed out the excess. They were lost on me. I was a Krispy Kreme kid.

[skeptic7]

My friends would have gladly eaten any donuts available, but they wouldn't have joined in my dissappointment at the lumpy shape and the sometimes completely filled in hole. This batch of donuts had better texture and shape than the last batch but still hadn't achieved perfection. My unsympathetic friends were more interested in taste than appearance.

[Mike Nolan]

Donuts is one of those things I've not attempted, because we don't have a deep fat fryer and LaMars makes such great donuts, why mess with them?

I remember my sister making donuts back in the 50's, but the nearest bakery was some 15 miles away. While I"m sure they made donuts there, what I remember were the cream horns, puff pastry filled with what was probably stabilized whipped cream and covered with powder sugar that left a dusting of powdered sugar on your hands, face and clothes when you ate them, but they were good! They also made a Vienna bread that you could smell a half block away.

[BakerAunt]

Skeptic--I'll take tasty over beautiful any day!

[aaronatthedoublef]

I'm with BA. I was at a friend's 30th at a fancy hotel in Seattle.They had a beautiful cake that tasted like sawdust.

Never tried fried or raised doughnuts. I make KAF's recipes for baked doughnuts that are like light quick breads. My family likes them.

[skeptic7]

I was trying baked yeast donuts again, this time in plain rather than chocolate. I had stretched out the dough to get larger holes and tried without too much success to make the rings uniform in height and width. However when they baked some of the holes closed and other donuts were decidedly lumpy. They were a little dry the next day but still great with yogurt and strawberries.

[skeptic7]

Oh I was at a grocery store that has white flour but not whole wheat. I went to whole wheat for health reasons, and used white flour for pie crusts and special holiday baking. I don't have medical reasons, I just thought if I stuck to whole wheat it would have a little less calories.
Mike what sort of mill do you have and how much work is it to get the wheat kernels and grind your own flour?

[BakerAunt]

Skeptic--Bob's Red Mill has occasionally had whole wheat flour available--limit of two 5 lb. bag. You have to hit it right on their website. Shipping is $9.99 flat rate for me (UPS), and the two orders I've done have arrived within a week. Usually, I can find a few other items to add (if they are in stock), so I don't cringe too much at the shipping. I'm happy with their whole wheat flour.

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