Baking is not part of traditional Chinese cuisine. Stir-frying, steaming, and braising are common. But ovens are still very much a rarity in a Chinese kitchen. The fact that I can make bread, cakes, and cookies is amazing to my local friends. They don’t realize how terrible the local bakeries’ bread is because they’ve never had quality bread or desserts. (Well, until they visit me, that is!)

I have to make our own breads in order to have something edible and somewhat nutritious. (The bread here tends to be very light and sweet. I think it is made with water instead of milk, all white flour, no eggs, and a lot of sugar. Think ultra sweet Wonderbread. Yuck.)

Some cities do have Western style bread shops, but our small city still has only Chinese-styled breads, things like buns stuffed with sweetened red bean paste or stuffed with dried meat floss. Things like tortillas, bagels, pita bread, raisin bread are non-existent.

So I use lots of flour. So much flour that I buy it in bulk at the bakery supply shop in the wholesale market. Here is my latest delivery — a 25 kg bag (over 50 lbs) of bread flour and a 23 kg bag of whole wheat flour. I don’t do it so much to save money (although it is cheaper this way) as to save the trouble of carrying home a 5 pound bag of flour every time I go to the grocery store.

The bakery supply shop has become so used to me that they will deliver right to my door. What a convenience! I just call them up when I’m running low. This much flour lasts us about 6 months. I spent 350 RMB on this delivery; that’s about $50.

This time they even brought me some muffin papers. My last package (all red) lasted me two entire years. I don’t know how many are in there– maybe 600? Looks like this cycle will be yellow.

The whole wheat flour has to be special ordered since none of their other customers uses it. (That tells you a lot about the quality of bread in our city, doesn’t it? Four million people and I am the sole user of whole wheat flour.) I store the flour in big plastic bins in my bedroom beside the chest freezer. I’ve never had any trouble with weevils or other pests since the bakery’s flour is much fresher than what is in the grocery stores.

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