White Lily Flour Availability?

[Chris Amirault]

I'm having a devil of a time finding White Lily flour anywhere. Stores up here don't carry it, and the online options seem to be very limited -- drying up, even. The only option I can find is this Smuckers page, but they are gift sets, and I just want the self-rising flour for biscuits.

Does anyone have any tips on (1) getting stores to carry this essential ingredient or (2) online sources that allow for the purchase of a five-pound bag?

[Catew]

Actually, that Smucker's offer isn't too far from what you want. Look at the Flour and Cornmeal 2-pack. You can select to have both items be flour -- so that's 2 5-pound bags with no other products involved. Stash one in the freezer, and you're set!

[dls]

I don't know if it can still be done but, I've ordered the self-rising flour alone by phone in the past. Try calling them on Monday at 1-800-742-6729 to see if they will help you out.

[lperry]

Do you have Harris Teeter? I had problems finding it this far north (that would be the DC Metro area), and someone suggested HT. They have it in some of their larger stores here.

[CaliPoutine]

Do you have a super Wal*mart? I can find it in Port Huron and thats a dinky border town!!

[jsmeeker]

I can get it here in Dallas at Central Market, but it costs like $4 or $5 for a 5lb bag. Seems kind of pricey to me. What does it run in place like Georgia or wherever it's a lot more common?

[Bree20]

I can get it here in Dallas at Central Market, but it costs like $4 or $5 for a 5lb bag.  Seems kind of pricey to me.  What does it run in place like Georgia or wherever it's a lot more common?

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A big bag of white lily is about $1.89 here - you can get all there products for a reasonable amount.

I have found that if you make friends with the person who runs the section at your local supermarket ie. flour, sugar coffee, bakery and breads etc.. they can order it special for you. I have special orders at several different markets in town - hey make the right friends and life is good.

You can also go to www.whitelily.com . The Whiye Lily Whole Food Co. is out of Knoxville, TN

Their cornmeal is the only cornmeal I had every seen growing up and what I use today. I bought a 2 lb bag that Kroger was running a special two bags for $3.00.

[foodie52]

King Arthur also sells a self-rising flour and it's much cheaper.

[Chris Amirault]

Thanks, Catew; I didn't read carefully, clearly. That's a far better option than, well, anything that isn't White Lily. All the other self-rising flours we've tried with Shirley Corriher's biscuits don't come close. If you've had those sublime biscuits, you know why I'm picky about the flour.

[pingarina]

Actually, that Smucker's offer isn't too far from what you want.  Look at the Flour and Cornmeal 2-pack.  You can select to have both items be flour -- so that's 2 5-pound bags with no other products involved.  Stash one in the freezer, and you're set!

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Thanks for pointing this out, Catew. Now that I've written letters to both Smucker's and White Lily...

[Holly Moore]

For us wannabe five string banjo pickers, there is only one self-rising flour cause you bake all right with Martha White

... For the finest biscuits ever wuz

Get Martha White self-rising flour

The one all purpose flour,

Martha White self-rising flour's

Got Hot Rise...

Ain't no Hot Rise in White Lily.

Edited December 2, 2007 by Holly Moore (log)

[foodie52]

Shirley is a great believer in White Lily flour. I've worked with her, making her biscuits from White Lily and then eating them with peach preserves. Her book, Cookwise,

has a section on the differences between flours. For a while we couldn't get White Lily into Central Market and believe me: we had LOTS of complaints. But now it's back.

[hjshorter]

I have seen it at Williams-Sonoma, if you're desperate and don't mind paying their prices.

[Chris Amirault]

Two five-pound bags arrived safe and sound from the aforementioned Smuckers website.

[Gingersnap]

White Lily will no longer be produced in Knoxville, TN after the end of this month, and production is moving to plants in the midwest. An extremely small (n=2), non-random, blind (but not double-blind) test indicated, contrary to Smucker's corporate line, that differences between the southern White Lily and the midwestern White Lily flours (that just looks plain wrong!) are noticeable, according to this article in the New York Times..

If you're going to go hunting for southern White Lily, a Smuckers representative, though protesting that there is no difference between the flour from the original mill and from the new midwestern mills, told me how to identify flour from the Knoxville mill.

Find the Best By Date on the bag of flour. After that date, there is a code. The first digit of the code is the year (e.g., 8 for this year, 2008), the next three digits are for the day of the year (e.g., June 18=169), and the next three digits (digits 5, 6, and 7) are the plant code. The Knoxville mill is coded as 569.

[Chris Amirault]

Here's the troubling bit, from Saint Shirley herself:

“If the source of the wheat is the same, the mill itself won’t be that hard to duplicate,” Mr. Hoseney said. Ms. Corriher, on the other hand, was more skeptical that a process perfected over more than a century of milling and subjected to Knoxville’s intensive quality control could be easily replicated.

A blind test by two bakers, who were sent bags of the old and new product marked only A and B, underscored Ms. Corriher’s concern.

Zoellyn Smith, who worked in both quality control and research and development at the Knoxville plant, accurately identified the new product before she began to bake. Sample A, the new product, had “a grayish color” and made a “dense and chewy” cake, while Sample B, the old, made for silky, rather than stiff, dough and a “light and airy” cake.

“When I looked at just the flour I thought that Sample B was milled in Knoxville,” she said. “After performing the bakes there was no doubt.”

But it did not take a specialist in food technology and plant sciences to guess right. Ms. Hilton, the amateur baker, said, “There wasn’t a big difference, but I could tell the difference.” Even her family knew which batch was made with flour milled in the Midwest. “The biscuits came out just a little more dense, and the texture wasn’t quite as smooth.”

So, basically, we should all be hoarding White Lily flour now and packing it into our freezers for our children's children?

[hazardnc]

Here's the troubling bit, from Saint Shirley herself:

“If the source of the wheat is the same, the mill itself won’t be that hard to duplicate,” Mr. Hoseney said. Ms. Corriher, on the other hand, was more skeptical that a process perfected over more than a century of milling and subjected to Knoxville’s intensive quality control could be easily replicated.

A blind test by two bakers, who were sent bags of the old and new product marked only A and B, underscored Ms. Corriher’s concern.

Zoellyn Smith, who worked in both quality control and research and development at the Knoxville plant, accurately identified the new product before she began to bake. Sample A, the new product, had “a grayish color” and made a “dense and chewy” cake, while Sample B, the old, made for silky, rather than stiff, dough and a “light and airy” cake.

“When I looked at just the flour I thought that Sample B was milled in Knoxville,” she said. “After performing the bakes there was no doubt.”

But it did not take a specialist in food technology and plant sciences to guess right. Ms. Hilton, the amateur baker, said, “There wasn’t a big difference, but I could tell the difference.” Even her family knew which batch was made with flour milled in the Midwest. “The biscuits came out just a little more dense, and the texture wasn’t quite as smooth.”

So, basically, we should all be hoarding White Lily flour now and packing it into our freezers for our children's children?

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YES!

[annecros]

I am aghast and alarmed. I simply cannot make a decent biscuit with Yankee Flour!

Winn Dixie carries it here, and I am going to stock up today.

[lperry]

^ You and every woman in my family, including me! You just don't mess with someone's biscuits.