Hi Can someone pls tell me Czech equivalent for the following ........ 1. Self Raising flour (used for baking) 2. Plain flour 3. castor sugar 4.vanilla essence Thanks a ton in anticipation... Christmas is round the corner and must bake my cake in time......... Jaybee ----- Don't use all caps in title thanks -gementricxs
I'm not an English native and i've never bought cooking ingredients in UK or US, so don't take my translation so seriously. 1.Self Raising Flour I guess this is probably kypřící prášek do pečiva, it's the only ingredient I can think of, which is self-raising. It's sold in small bags and cost like 1Kč per bag. 2.Plain Flour Translation for flour is mouka. I don't know what Plain Flour is. At Czech stores you can buy three kinds of flour, Hladká Mouka, Polohrubá Mouka, Hrubá Mouka. Probably mostly used in all recipes is Polohrubá Mouka. I guess you are looking for Hladká Mouka, this one is the most smooth of them. 3.Castor Sugar Internet says, that castor sugar is "Castor or caster sugar is the name of a very fine sugar in Britain, so named because the grains are small enough to fit though a sugar "caster" or sprinkler. It is sold as "superfine" sugar in the United States. Because of its fineness, it dissolves more quickly than regular white sugar, and so is especially useful in meringues and cold liquids. It is not as fine as confectioner’s sugar, which has been crushed mechanically (and generally mixed with a little starch to keep it from clumping). If you don’t have any castor sugar on hand, you can make your own by grinding granulated sugar for a couple of minutes in a food processor (this also produces sugar dust, so let it settle for a few moments before opening the food processor)." If I understand it correctly, the confectioner's sugar is called Cukr Moučka and normal sugar is called Cukr Krystal. You can see Cukr Moučka on the picture below on the top of that Chocolate Souffle. 4.Vanilla Esence You can buy Vanilková Esence, which is liquid. You can also buy Vanilkový Cukr (Vanilla Sugar), it's cukr krystal mixed with vanilla, you can use it everywhere where you want to use normal sugar. It's usually sold under the name Vanilinový Cukr, because it's made from some chemical substance and not from real vanilla.
Kypřící prášek do pečiva is just baking powder. But you can make self-rising flour with a simple recipe (see http://baking.about.com/cs/hintsandtips/ht/selfrisingflour.htm)
I've only been here for three weeks so what do I know? But I think the sugar on the top of the photo is icing sugar rather than caster. I haven't seen caster sugar in the supermarkets - Tesco, Delvita or Albert - but I have never actually bought caster sugar. As suggested in the definition, I always just use ordinary sugar and put it in the grinder until the granules are smaller! And rather than work out how much baking powder I need to go with plain flour, I'm afraid I chickened out and I went to Robertson's, the shop that sells 'English' goods and bought self-raising flour. My first flour purchase was the hrubá mouka. When I opened the packet, I realised it was probably more suitable for bread making - it looks more like semolina than flour - but I sprinkled it on the meat I was frying for a stew and it worked much better than plain flour in the UK - I usually get the odd lump but the hrubá mouka thickened evenly and smoothly.
I use the 00 flour for making bread. For cookies also T650 flour is convenient - it contains more gluten.
There is a simple flour rule my mum and grandmum taught me years ago - hladká mouka (smooth flour) is mainly for frying (e.g. crepes. pancakes or doughnuts, roux or béchamel), polohrubá mouka (semi-coarse flour) is for baking (muffins, brownies, cakes etc.) and hrubá mouka (coarse flour) is for cooking (e.g. noodles, dumplings). However, there are exceptions (as in everything): smooth flour is good for baking as well (namely kolache, Christmas cookies, sweet bread etc.).
