Bulk baking ingredients

[Tina Nord]

Does anyone purchase their baking ingredients from warehouse stores like Costco? You can get a large quantity for cheap, but how do you store the items so they don't go bad? My thought is to buy things like flour in bulk and them store them in smaller containers so they will fit in my pantry.

 

[Trellum]

I don't think that buying baking supplies in bulk from Costco is such a great idea, unless you have your own bakery. Otherwise, I say just buy as you go, that's what I do. If I had a bigger family and baked very often all our baked goods, then I'd really consider it!!!! I'd buy several smaller containers to store those ingredients safely, I'd then use stick a label with the name and expiration date.

 

[ThatNewMommy]

My Costco has the SUPER HUGE bags of regular flour and the BIG boxes of certain flours. When I used Presto (self-rising flour) I used to buy the big box of Presto there. It was much more inexpensive per ounce. I used to store it in a large bowl with lid in the back of the cupboard where it was cooler than the rest of the house. Now I use whole wheat flour and unfortunately they don't have that size. So I just buy the regular 5lb bag at the supermarket and store it the same way.

 

[Tina Nord]

I did buy the Costco size bag of sugar because we did go through that in a reasonable amount of time. I just stored it in a big container. I did a lot of baking for Christmas, so it was a good investment. I think the flour bags are way too big to make it worth getting a discount on. I am on the fence about the bug bag of chocolate chips you can get there. My fear is that they would get sticky and melt during the warm summer months. I don't have a cellar to keep things cool.

 

[ThatNewMommy]

I did buy the Costco size bag of sugar because we did go through that in a reasonable amount of time. I just stored it in a big container. I did a lot of baking for Christmas, so it was a good investment. I think the flour bags are way too big to make it worth getting a discount on. I am on the fence about the bug bag of chocolate chips you can get there. My fear is that they would get sticky and melt during the warm summer months. I don't have a cellar to keep things cool.

Anything chocolate or "meltable" suffers in our house. LOL My partner is a chocolate freak so if he is going to have it he needs to eat it within a day or two. If not he stores it in the fridge door (which is the less cold place). Have you tried that?

 

[connie]

I purchase most of my bean, pulses and gram flour in larger quantities and just store it as needed. Most are in air tight glass containers and store without issue. You should find it will store just fine if you can guarantee it is airtight. But do double check it before use. You can get flour mites which live off the flour and are basically black specks in the flour. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flour_mite. If you have them flour, then usually the advice not to consume the flour, but if you keep the flour airtight from the word go or consume it quickly, you should be fine.

 

[Winterybella]

Before I joined the forum I was not that much of a baking person and most of what I baked was from a box. Even then bulk shopping did not work for me . I remember buying box cakes in bulk from BJ's when I used to travel and even then some would end up going well beyond the expiry date with me. I honestly thought that flour would start to grow the amount of time I had it around because of buying too much. I still have all kinds of things I bought in bulk that I figured I would use and never did. I am not going to advocate it unless you are going to use the products, Too much wastage I think.

 

[ReadmeByAmy]

I do not bake often and in large quantities that is why I am not buying in bulk and I only buy my baking ingredients and supplies just only enough for my list to do baking for a month. Most of the time I do bake once a week only during weekends during family gathering. Before I do buy them in bulk but sometimes it is already expiration date not all are consume so it is just wasted and to think waste of money too.

 

[Zyni]

I don't have a lot of extra storage space, so I usually don't buy baking stuff in bulk. I used to do so more often when I had a pantry, and I just made sure to seal the stuff up well. I try to grab an extra bag of flour or sugar when it's on sale, but I don't usually get the huge bags. Around the holidays maybe, and I often still have to split it with my married daughter. There are only 3 of us living here now that the kids are growing up and moving out. When there were 6 of us, it was more worthwhile to buy in bulk.

 

[ThatNewMommy]

I purchase most of my bean, pulses and gram flour in larger quantities and just store it as needed. Most are in air tight glass containers and store without issue. You should find it will store just fine if you can guarantee it is airtight. But do double check it before use. You can get flour mites which live off the flour and are basically black specks in the flour. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flour_mite. If you have them flour, then usually the advice not to consume the flour, but if you keep the flour airtight from the word go or consume it quickly, you should be fine.

NEVER had I had those until this one time I bought flour from a mini-market in my neighborhood. I didn't have any flour and had a craving for biscuits for like three days and since I knew I wasn't going to be able to get to the supermarket in a while, I went ahead and bought it there. I go home all happy and when I dump my fist half cup of flour in my bowl....eeeew. I was so angry. Never went back.

 

[connie]

NEVER had I had those until this one time I bought flour from a mini-market in my neighborhood. I didn't have any flour and had a craving for biscuits for like three days and since I knew I wasn't going to be able to get to the supermarket in a while, I went ahead and bought it there. I go home all happy and when I dump my fist half cup of flour in my bowl....eeeew. I was so angry. Never went back.

Gram flour is ground up chickpeas (and very tasty in the right recipes). It wouldn't work the same way as ground up wheat, which does not work the same way as ground up spelt or ground up potatoes...

If used as it is intended though it makes for the most amazing meals, but they are out of the scope of a baking forum unless you are looking to use gram flour in cakes and tbh I am not certain I would. I shall have to have a look through my middle eastern and indian recipes books to see if gram flour is used in these for cakes and baking. TBH I am not certain it is.