Since whole wheat flour still contains the germ, and therefore oils, how do you tell if it is old? I don't trust my nose, if thats how you do it, my sinus'es are going nuts with all this pollen here. I have had this about a year. If I'm wrong, please let me know and I will proceed. I was going to do the sour dough starter that sourdoLady posted a few years back and I that is the only whole grain flour I have in the house. I equally don't trust my local market on such matters. Theirs could be older than mine! All ya'll doing all this sour dough has got me itching to give it a try. I have done it before, but with starter I bought from KA. Never on my own. But alas, I got ready to start and now I have this flour issue. HELP!
Audra
Audra, if your flour has been in the refrigerator or freezer, tightly wrapped, you could give it a try. If it has been on the shelf, I'd just throw it out. You'd probably do better to wait and get some fresh flour to build your starter. Sorry to bring you down. Rancid flour smells and tastes very sharp, and like something you don't want to eat! If you have unbleached white flour, you can build a starter with that, too, you know. And it's not against the law to build more than one starter at time!
Susan
It has been in the pantry, just in a canister, so away it goes. If I just use white flour, do I use the same starter formula, or would you suggest a different one. I liked hers, because it has those cool pictures, so I'd know if I was goofin' it up in some way. Thanks for the advise, and it didn't douse my spirits. I can do that all by myself! Today I guess I had too many irons in the fire. I had a biga going for potato rosemary bread,and a pata ferment for one of the hamburger bun experimentals for this weekend. It was not my day. I almost used all the biga (it called for 7 oz.: I had to dig part of it back out and dust the flour back in the bowl ) in the bread, also I had it mixed up and had hand kneaded for the specified 10 minutes and thought the dough sure was a tuff one. Well I turned to get my oiled bowl and there sat the dang potatoes and rosemary on the counter. I hope that dough is a forgiving soul. I put it back in the stand mixer and beat the bejesus out of it for a few minutes, and kneaded it for a few more, and it looked more like it should. That was a few hours ago, and so far so good! Its a good thing I have a sence of humor! But we've eaten brix before! Thank you for your help.
Audra
Go ahead and start one with white flour, why not? If it works, great! If not, you haven't lost much. It's just easier, I suspect, with whole grain flours. Make sure you use bottled or filtered water, otherwise you're just causing yourself trouble.
Take a deep breath!
Good luck, and let us know how it goes...
Susan
Sourdough-guy, I know you're laughing but I had to check through my cupboard when I returned here after 6 months. There was a little crawling too. My old sourdough got a quick burial, container and all. Mini Oven
Don't you dare keep your questions to yourself! That would be so selfish; how else do you think we all learn?!? We learn from others' boo-boos. And we ALL make 'em!
With tongue firmly in cheek,
Susan
I was kinda bummed about that! Bread is not my best field, but if I could, I'd poke a Triple Chocolate Espresso cookie through the computer for you. They just come out of the oven. Nothin' like a caffine, sugar buzz about this time of day!
Audra
I'd eat it right up. In fact, how 'bout posting that recipe or a link to it!
Susan
As I told the others, I posted it, and even I can't find it about 2 times out of 5. I have a lot to learn about computers! I put it in cookies, pies, and pastries. The only way I could find it was in recent post, and under my name. But sound like you are more computer minded than me so LOL. Cookin' up anything good this weekend?
Audra
Me, computer literate? Surely you jest! But, yes, Audra, I found it right away and immediately copied it to the Foods folder on my Mac. Thank you so much for thinking of me.
Actually, I'm taking a break today, and am in withdrawal already, and it's only 10 a.m. What to do? What to do?
Susan
The white flour says "Gosh, I hope I get lucky tonight." and the whole wheat replies, " me too, nothing's happened in the last three months and I'm afraid I'll go rancid!"
I just typed in the recipe every one requested for the Triple Chocolat Espresso Cookies and where did it go? Log onto my name and track it if you want it. I will keep looking for it. I logged it in cookies, pies, and pasteries??>>>!!! Go figure. LOL>
Audra, I made a simliar recipe to yours on Friday as well, I use the recipe for Mudslide cookies from the CIA, I'll post it below.
They are very tasty! I made them for a niece who is a very good cook in her own right since it is her birthday she can have some foods made for her, I wish someone would do the same on my birthday :)
I'm going to pick up some good ice cream as I won't have time to make any, and try out your ice cream sandwich idea.
Mudslide Cookies
Flourless cooking spray for greasing
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon powdered instant coffee
1 tablespoon boiling water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
7 ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
7 large eggs
2 3/4 cups sugar
2 cups chopped walnuts
1 1/2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Lightly spray cookie sheets with cooking spray or line them with parchment paper.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl and set aside. Combine the instant coffee and boiling water to make a paste. Blend in the vanilla extract.
Melt the chopped unsweetened chocolate, chopped bittersweet chocolate and the butter in a saucepan over low heat or in the microwave in 15- to 20-second intervals. Gently stir to blend. (I didn't have enough unsweetened so I had to substitute with cocoa and butter)
In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat together the eggs, sugar and coffee paste mixture on high speed until light in texture and thick, 6 to 8 minutes. Add the chocolate mixture with the machine running on medium speed. On low speed, mix in the dry ingredients until just blended. Mix in the walnuts and chocolate chips until blended. Scrape down the bowl as needed during mixing to blend evenly.
Using a ΒΌ-cup measure as a scoop, fill it with dough, level it, and drop the dough onto a prepared cookie sheet, leaving 3 to 4 inches between the cookies. In batches, bake until the cookies are cracked on top but still slightly moist, rotating the pans as necessary to bake evenly, 14 minutes. Allow the cookies to cool slightly on the cookie sheet before transferring them to wire racks to cool completely.
Makes a lot of large cookies.
I have printed it out just now. Can't resist a good cookie! And it has lots of chocolate, your singing my song ! I had to type in my recipe. Is their a way to cut and paste from my documents to here without having to re-type everything we want to share?
Audra
Oh yes, nearly 1 1/2 pounds of chocolate and expresso powder with vanilla strengthening the chocolate flavour too. Sort of like chocolate pate, in a cookie :>
You can copy and paste from any document into the post editor here, though it seems to be best to first copy and paste into notepad (or something basic like it) and then copy from there into the MCE editor on this forum. This way you don't end up with formatting that messes up your post, though this may only be my computer as I desperately need to reinstall my operating system OR get a new hard drive.
I've recently had a breakthough in posting pictures. Ask me, I'll try to help. Big thing for me was size, they need to be 640x480.
Susan-Who-Must-Be-Shown
(not Susan-who-can-read-about-it-put-down-the-book-and-do-it)
Here audra, it's my turn to risk sounding silly; is it true that fresh ground ww flour is only good for 3 days? I thought one had something like 3 months.
Also, it's my understanding that all commercial flour in the U.S. has it's germ removed, including whole wheat. On the other hand, I've bought flour from my co-op that labels itself (forgive the grammar) "bread flour white organic, with germ." Is that just a scam or is it for real? And if it is for real, should I be worrying about it going rancid (although I've always smelled it and never found anything amiss in smell or taste)?
edh
On the top of my NEW- KA whole wheat flour bag it had a use by date, which is about 6 months from now, assuming it was properly stored. It said on the bag "contains germ and bran". But like you, I have never smelled any thing odd, SO thats why I opened this whole kettle of fish to begin with. I'm going to use the new bag to "start the starter", since they seem to be pesky critters, and follow Mini Oven's advise and start out by doing pancakes with old on a test run. It wasn't the $2 or so for the new flour, I just didn't want to kill a week or so trying to make a starter work, and the flour be old and have to start over because of something that I could have avoided. After reading sooo many people on here, with so much more experience than me,- with so many ups and downs , how in the world did our ancesters make bread at all? Little or no refrigeration, no "spring water", no thermometers, convection ovens, and only the flour their local grain mill ground for them once a year- good crop or no.....I take my hat off to them, and to all of ya'll who post all those beautiful pictures! It makes me think that are unicorns! But ANYWAY>>>> don't ask me advise on the flour ordeal. Just maybe read your bag?? Mine was in really small print. Hope your eyes are better than mine. LOL.
Audra
My bread making skills are not on the level most of you are on, and had felt I had so little to contribute. I cook A LOT of neat stuff. I am lucky that my husband likes to try different food, in fact not a week goes by that we don't have something new at least 3 to 4 times. There's a lot of them I would love to share, but this is a bread website afterall, and I didn't know what to do. Now about the bread ...I'm not used to being the person who doesn't have all the answers. Not that I'm a know it all! But I have to know WHY in order to understand how things work. This site has helped a lot, but I think I need some better reference books also. Got any suggestions? I did not take offence to your comment! I too thought it was funny! Keep up the good work, and I really hope you enjoy the cookies. Play with the coffee issue, until you get it like you like it.
AUDRA
I have a ton of recipes on my computer also, but be aware, I had a crash last year and lost all that I didn't have printed. Since then, I bought simple clear covers from the school supplies section, and printed my own and did a note book for just my stuff. I have in the back of my mind doing a printed version for myself, because the notebook has already gone to overflowing. I looked around and I think it was picaboo.com that had a fair cookbook fill in the blank sorta thing, but the prettiest one is one blurb.com professional photo books. I have been trying to take more pictures as I cook, for the keepers. If I don't take photos, sometimes I forget what I've tried and what I haven't. My french bread yesterday turned out well, and I think it needs a big platter of New Orleans Barbecue Shrimp so that it won't be lonely! I'll be glad to share if you don't already have it, or one similar. We have several barbecue shrimp recipes, but this is our favorite. What are ya'll cookin' up this weekend?
Audra
Rancid whole wheat flour will have a strongly bitter taste and the smell is somewhat waxy and astringent. Fresh-ground flour has very little bitterness, at least to me. If you bought a bag of KAF whole wheat flour and just left it out on the counter at room temp, I'd imagine it'd be good for a month or so. Beyond that, I'd think it's in danger of being rancid.