Calling Hans (norgeway): Adluh Flour

[frigilux]

I have company coming in two weeks who prefer biscuits to dinner rolls. They also like my blueberry cornbread. You've had great things to say about Adluh self-rising flour and after your endorsement of Happy Home flavorings (which I now use) I want to give it a try. Found the Adluh Flour Store online and have a couple of questions. (Aside: Interestingly, their flour comes in either 2-lb., 25-lb., or 50-lb. bags. No 5- or 10-lb. options, which is what we generally see up north.)

1. Do you use Adulh's plain flour for general baking (cakes, cookies, quick breads, etc.)? Somewhere online I found a tip that said to add 1 tablespoon of vital wheat gluten to each cup of Adluh flour when making yeast breads. Do you also use Adluh for sandwich loaves and dinner rolls?

2. Do you use Adluh yellow corn meal or their grits?

Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide.

 

[drhardee]

Curious... Allen Brothers Milling is 2 miles from my home in downtown Columbia, SC, but we have a difficult time finding it in our local stores.

Factoid: Adluh is "Hulda" spelled backward. Hulda was the miller's daughter for whom the place is named. It's good stuff, but not easy to find.

I really ought to go on a tour of that place someday soon!

 

[rp2813]

An interesting old facility like that would have been (cough) toast around here a long time ago.

 

[gyrafoam]

IMO Adluh is very good flour. Makes great quick-breads such as pancakes and biscuits. Cakes and cookies are very good, as well.
White Corn Meal and Grits are excellent. If you enjoy baking you are going to love this flour.

 

[norgeway]

I buy it

In 5 pound bags, but that is in stores...I use it both self rising and plain, but I NEVER use yellow corn meal, only white, If I make yeast breads I use Pillsbury or Gold Medal, Yankee flours are better for yeast breads in my opinion, but my Grandmother used Red Band for everything and made wonderful rolls and bread,I just bought some as we are in Columbia visiting some friends.You have to remember Southern Flours are made from soft winter wheat, totally different from Northern all purpose flours,Make biscuits with Gold Medal and then with Adluh or Virginias Best and see the difference, You can work the hell out of the dough when using a Southern flour and your biscuits will be light and tender...not so with high gluten flours,you will have rocks!

 

[frigilux]

Thanks for the recommendations, guys. I'm going to order two small bags each of Adluh's self-rising and plain flours.

 

[gyrafoam]

The worst part of purchasing flour online is the cost of shipping! Damned gravity.

 

[jamiel]

You're on the right track adding gluten to a southern flour...I believe there was a feature on Cooks Illustrated several years ago contrasting southern all-purpose (Martha White/Red Band/White Lily), northern all-purpose (Pillsbury/Gold Medal), and Canadian all-purpose (Robin Hood) and each had more gluten than the previous by a couple percent each (Southern-8%/Northern 10%/Canadian 12% seems to come to mind).

 

[gyrafoam]

It's true the Northern flours have a higher gluten. However, nobody told all those millions of old southern cooks who used whatever they had and turned-out excellent bread time after time. Doesn't seem to matter whether I use White Lily or King Arthur, my dinner rolls and challah come out perfectly every time. Since Hudson Cream is the plentiful brand around where I live I have gotten used to it and it does just fine. I used it to make the loaves of challah I brought to this past summer's wash-in. The Hudson Cream Bleached White makes a very good layer cake with a fine crumb.

 

[jamiel]

Not to be blunt, but the South is hardly known for yeast breads...either at the home or commercial. Is there any sandwich in the South which is served on anything but white cotton-bread? Dinner rolls, challah, brioche and the like are all delicate, rich, quickly baked yeast breads.

 

[norgeway]

Hmmm

That's funny, My Grandmother made homemade yeast bread every week for years,And the rolls served in school lunchrooms were the very best yeast rolls I ever tasted...The South is WELL known for breads of all types, yeast and quick.

 

[gyrafoam]

The old Highland Bakery ( not to be confused with the chain of modern-day stores) in Atlanta used to deliver all kinds of breads to us. Salt-Rising, Rye, Pumpernickel, Raisin. They did great business back in the day, when Atlanta was not cosmopolitan. Southerners were used to all kinds of breads.

 

[michaelman2]

Yep, Mary Mac's and The Collonade might beg to differ with regard to the yeast breads/rolls.   (the aforementioned are two Atlanta institutions that have been around since the 1920s).

 

[gyrafoam]

Mike is right.

I've ruined many an appetite by consuming too many of Colonnades rolls before the food arrived!
Leb's served a mixed basket of warm rolls including pumpernickel with onions. So did the dining room at the Cherokee Club and Progressive.
The dining rooms at both Davison's and Rich's served great breads. So did the Ambassador.

Considering how insular Atlanta was back in the day I'd say breads of all varieties were very popular.

 

[michaelman2]

Absolutely correct Gyro. I can so relate to your loss of stomach capicity after the bread baskets were passed at the several Atlanta favorites you mentioned. I am still a White Lilly baker when I do biscuits. Had made a note to try the Adulh when I find it. You are right , the shipping of something so dense is expensive. Hell, I need to bite the bullet and order some. The website is so nice and warm.

 

[mikael3]

I love yeast rolls made with soft-wheat flour, but it is inherently different from hard-wheat flour, no doubt.  For one thing, it has very little body, which is exactly why those rolls at the Colonnade are so light.  For another, soft-wheat bread goes stale while you look at it, which is why those same little rolls are so strange when you try to eat the leftovers the next day. 

 

As for Southerners making a lot of yeast bread, I would have to question that.  People definitely make rolls and that sort of thing, but I really don’t know of anyone who has ever routinely made loaves of bread, even decades ago. 

 

If you’re having one of your ‘moments’ on this topic, check out Elizabeth David’s book, English Bread and Yeast Cookery.  It’s an absolute page-turner (rivaled only by Zohary & Hopf’s Domestication of Plants in the Old World and Ken Albala’s Eating Right in the Renaissance).  Ms. David goes into great detail about types of flour and their affect on yeast and baking. 

 

[luxflairguy]

I was in WallyWorld this morning getting Persil and I perused the baking isle.  They had Martha White flour and mixes from Memphis, TN on the shelves.  What's it like to y'all?

 

[gyrafoam]

They are owned by the same company that owns White Lily.
I have used Martha White many times and have no problem with it.

Their White Corn Meal Mix is considered a staple in the deep-south and it is VERY good.

 

[frigilux]

OK, I have one more question. Please remember that I've never lived south of Minnesota.

Why the preference for white corn meal over yellow, Southerners? Yellow corn meal is pretty much all I see in small-town grocery stores up here.

Thanks again to all of you for your suggestions and input! As several have pointed out, I want to make educated decisions on what to order before pressing the ca-ching button on the high shipping prices for flour, corn meal and grits.