I've lurked long enough...

Hello. So I've lurked, I have now decided to show myself as I am in need of help! I came to live in Denmark 4 months ago from the UK with my Danish OH of 10 years. In that 10 years he reckons I've never made such bad bread! So I am in need of help. I've resigned myself to not being able to get the variety of flour here (no such thing as malted as far as I can work out), to having frequent disasters (hey, some of my bricks of loaves have kept us warm on the fire for a couple of hours) and even the 7 dogs turning their noses up at some of my creations! So despite my leaven being fantastic, my 100% rye being adored by the old folk in the village (it isn't to my taste) and being delighted by being able to buy organic fresh yeast at my local tiny shop, I am head in hands and in tears at the though of being stuck with rubbish flour... or just not being able to work out what it is! But lets look on the bright side, my ciabatta is still light and lovely ;)

If you can make a decent ciabatta, you can certainly migrate it to be the basis for a bread of your liking. And it indicates that you have a source of flour with sufficient gluten to build on. I don't know what your end point will be but you have a point of departure.

Sometimes that is the best source for bread flour. I don't know what Danish grocery stores are like but is there a large coop type store? or a store that has bulk bins that would either have the flour or order it?

Found an interesting site-I wonder if it could be helpful for all kinds of issues:

http://portal.foreignersindenmark.dk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4413

Also, what kind of bread are you trying to make?

I know about foreigners in Denmark - everyone is in Copenhagen or the north so it is pretty much useless for sourcing flours for me as we are almost as far south as it is possible to get without dropping off the islands. Yep, I can buy a high gluten white and a decent imported 00 grade too. But the whole grain flours are a nightmare - either a grahams mel which is not great or a full corn which is more like cracked wheat... Then we get the ones I have no idea what they are and OH can't translate out of Danish, and can't buy malted flour for love nor money! Or malted grains. I realised how much I missed a malted flour (and stoneground) when I went back to the UK and picked up a couple of bags. Gawd it makes lovely bread. The only decent bakery uses rye flour or a white organic that I can get too... We do have Co-ops. And other supermarket. They stock different flours and I'm working my way through them with limited success!!!

Be careful giving the doggies yeasted bread. Doggies don't digest yeasted breads very well and can cause serious constipation. Just thought I'd pass that along since I saw whaere the doggies were even turning up their noses.

Doggies only get crusts. I've got 5 who are wheat gluten intolerant and I ain't going there with what comes out the other end of 5 large dogs after lots of wheat!!! Add to that the other 2 who eat any old rubbish they find and we have lots of fun in this house ;-)

My 85 pound Johnson American/English Bulldog mix snuck in the kitchen a few weeks ago and ate an entire loaf of Italian bread I made. She felt horrible for days and drank the equivalent of Lake Michigan in water. I felt really bad for her.

The disadvantage of big doggies - they can counter surf with no problem! Top tip if it happens again - feed some cooked potato, helps to push everything through.

Hey thanks for that advice, I never would have thought that adding another starch on top of the ball 'o starch in her tummy would help. If she ever does it again I will feed her the potato.