j0197

I always have to go to numerous different shops for baking stuff like plain flour, self raising, caster sugar etc and always end up buying the English Products.

Do the spanish use Caster Sugar when baking?

Every so often I go up and down every isle in Mercadona to check if they have started to sell new products, but I have never seen Caster Sugar.

Im also confused with Harina.

Can anyone translate the names for me and if the Spanish makes are any good?

Flour Plain
Self Raising
Caster Sugar
Baking Powderbaking!

Any help would be good as Im in the mood for baking

mikelincs

Plain Flour is Harina. but I agree, can be very misleading, we've finally sucumbed to buying English after several horrrendous mistakes, so would also be greatful for any help.
Self raising, Harina con levadora
Baking Powder; Polvo levadora ( levadora means raising agent, so yeast would also be a levadora.
Caster sugar, as far as I know doesn't have a translation, but best thing is to put the required into a grinder, dring for a couple of seconds and you have the fine grained caster sugar, as caster sugar is only the same stuff as ordinary sigar but with smaller crystals.

j0197

Great, thanks for that.

Theres only some many times i can blame the ingrediants for my disasters!

casa del sol

Not to good at translation but you can make Castor sugar by putting granulated sugar in a food processor to grind it finer.

I like to make my own bread and was wondering if yeast is easy to get and what to ask for? is it fresh or dried? and is it better to bring it over from the UK?

coralsoft

I've heard of other people doing the castor sugar trick. I've suggested to my wife asking at the bakeries where they get their ingredients, on the grounds that if someone's selling the end product, someone must be making the ingredients. Either you could buy some extra from the bakery, find the equivalent in-store or go direct to a wholesaler/distributor.

Has anyone looked in Makro - they do a lot of things aimed at smaller catering places, so maybe they have a different selection of flours and the like.

As a last resort, there are the ex-pat targetted outlets that sell stuff.

mikelincs

I've seen fresh yeast sold in Mercadona in the section with the butter, its called levadora, but was in small portions.

casa del sol

Thank you Coral & Mike, I will try the mercadona & look out for levadora, if not will ask our friendly baker.