Luker chocolates are the premium of chocolates for use as a food ingredient. They can be used as for any other premium chocolate.

For couverture, chocolate moulds and fancy chocolate work the following chocolates are recommended.

Dark Chocolate: Palenque or Mocondo depending on the cocoa solids content you prefer.

Milk chocolate: Noche and for vegan friendly requirements there is Oat Milk chocolate.

There is an excellent white chocolate too: Nevado.

These are all pure couverture chocolates that can be tempered as normal to give the very best in sheen, ‘snap’, aroma, taste and mouthfeel. Refer to individual product pages for specific details.

For an ingredient in bakery goods we have the Mistero range of chips (dark chocolate chips) for cakes and cookies with a bake time of up to 30 minutes and dark chocolate sticks to make exceptional ‘Pain au Chocolate’ pastries. We also have an all natural cocoa powder for cakes, sponges and other chocolate bakery goods. Refer to individual product pages for specific details.

Cocoa Nibs are an excellent natural energy booster used in nutrition and healthy energy bars and can be used as an ingredient or a snack on their own.

To make a white bread we recommend Marriages Golden Crust flour. If you want to make a yeasted brown bread in a breadmaker we recommend 20% Native Plain wholemeal flour or Annameal and 80% Marriages Golden Crust. For a really good white yeasted loaf why not try Kells Krusty White Bread mix. All you need to add is water and yeast. Use in place of flour and add the dried yeast that the breadmaker recipe advises.

To make white bread we recommend Marriages Golden Crust flour. If you want to make brown bread we recommend up to 20% Native Plain wholemeal flour or Annameal and 80% Marriages Golden Crust. For a really good white yeasted loaf why not try Kells Krusty White Bread mix. All you need to add is water and yeast. If you are using dried yeast we suggest using half the weight of dried yeast in place of fresh yeast.

Both are really great flours and in many uses, they can be interchangeable! However, Marriages Golden Crust is better suited for yeast bread with short or no ‘bulk fermentation’ when you let the dough stand to ferment for less than 4 hours before weighing and shaping the dough into loaf tins. This is mainly because of the choice of wheats and partly because it contains a tiny amount of ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) that helps the dough jump more in the oven to give better volume.

Marriages Uppermost are made from a different blend of wheat and do not have the added ascorbic acid and are better suited to yeasted bread with long fermentation of four hours or more before weighing and shaping into loaf tins, and, of course, for sour dough recipes. If used in a short time yeasted bread recipe, it will make a slightly softer dough and may not give the same jump in the oven.

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KELLS DOES NOT SELL ANY FLOURS THAT ARE BLEACHED

For a 100% wholemeal yeasted loaf we recommend Marriages Organic Strong Wholemeal Flour, which is ideal for yeasted wholemeal breads regardless of the mixing process. It has good quality gluten forming proteins that make a robust and tolerant dough. It is made from a blend of UK, Canadian and Asian wheats and is organic. Alternatively, to make a good yeasted brown bread any of the wholemeal flours we sell can be blended with a strong white flour from 10% to 50% wholemeal in the total flour blend, we recommend Marriages Golden Crust as the white flour.

Sourdough bread can be made from a wide range of flours. Here are a few suggestions…

For a typical sourdough bread, we would recommend starting with Marriages Uppermost as the main white flour, with perhaps an optional 10% Kells Wholemeal Rye or Marriages Dark Rye or Kells Wholemeal Spelt flours or a wholemeal wheat flour such as Kells Retail Coarse, or Kells Annameal or Native Purple Wheat. If you do not have Marriages Uppermost available, then Marriages Golden Crust is a good alternative.

Our French flours are good for making sourdough bread too, however, they behave slightly differently to Marriages flours and make doughs that are a little more extensible or ‘stretchy’ than the Marriages flours as a result of the selection of wheat. That ‘stretchiness’ can allow for better spring or jump in the oven but can require a little more skill or experience to get the very best results. For sourdough, we would recommend French Flour T65 Tradition ideally or if you do not have that available try French Flour T65 (Farine Creme). We would still suggest a small proportion of wholemeal flour as in the case of the Marriages flour with French Flour T65 Tradition but it is optional.

For the more experienced baker, you might like to experiment with the Knoll Mill T700 Organic White Wheat flour which is an organic Austrian flour to make organic bread.

If a more experienced baker would like to try 100% wholemeal sour dough, try Marriages Craftsman.

For pizza, we would recommend Marriages Italian Style Pizza Flour. It is a low extraction rate or patent grade flour which means it is very white with low ash content, like Italian 00 grade flours. Protein is around 12.6%. If you do not have the Marriages Italian Style Pizza Flour, you could use our French T65 Tradition flour or Marriages Golden Crust Flour. While both are strong flours, the French flour makes a more extensible dough that may suit pizza-making better, and the milling process used is closer to Italian flour milling processes. Marriages Golden Crust is a stronger flour than the French T65 Tradition.

For pasta, we have made great pasta from our Native Spelt flours, but they are in short supply at the present. Marriages Italian Style Pizza Flour or French T65 Tradition will make good homemade pasta, as well as Marriages Golden Crust or French T65, Knoll Mill T700 Organic White Wheat flour, and Marriages Uppermost.

Kells has a range of blends available to help make soda bread quickly, simply and consistently.

Soda bread can be made in a tin or baked on a tray on the ‘oven sole’ (without a tin).

Soda bread baked in a tin is the simpler one as you mix the dough and put it straight into a lightly greased tin and pat it down. You can sprinkle flakes, flour, or topping on to the top of the dough and then slash or cut the dough along the center for the length of the tin to help the rise on baking. For this style of bread we recommend the Brown Soda Mix- add water only or Millers Munch (to which you add buttermilk).

If you want to make the soda bread in a cob form without a tin, we recommend the Nore Soda Mix. When you make this you add buttermilk to make a dough. The dough is then weighed out into the bread weights you want and moulded or rounded with dusting flour to help. Mould to a ball and then place on a greased or floured baking tray and slightly flatten. Decorate with flour as an option. Then cut with the traditional cross and bake

In all cases, you can add some extra interest by adding some seeds during the mixing (say 10% to 20% of the weight of mix) but here is a tip…sunflower seed can go blue-green in some soda breads as the oil in the sunflower seed reacts with the baking soda. It is perfectly safe, but can be a surprise!

A traditional soda bread is normally a blend of wholemeal flour and white flour with baking soda, salt and buttermilk. Some recipes are 50/50 wholemeal and white and that is a good starting point, however some have larger proportions of wholemeal and less white flour. Some people do not use salt, and some people add vegetable oil and sugar, it is down to the baker. The flours we recommend for the wholemeal are Kells Retail Coarse or Kells Annameal which are coarse ‘soft’ wholemeal flours milled here in Ireland.

For a white flour, ANY of the white flours we sell would suit, remembering that self-raising already has some baking powder in it. Specifically we would recommend Kells Plain Culinary White Flour or French Flour T65 Tradition or French Flour T65 Farine Creme.

For a 100% wholemeal soda bread, this is a denser bread, but we would recommend using Marriages Craftsman Wholemeal and Kells Annameal together as a flour blend to make a full wholemeal soda bread.

A ‘strong’ flour normally refers to a flour with a protein content of a minimum of 10.5% to 11% and is largely good quality gluten forming the protein. It is normally used on fermented breads (yeast or sourdough)where dough is made. The gluten helps trap the gas and water vapour in the dough to allow the dough to rise during proving and baking. A strong flour can also be used in laminated pastry, soda bread and, as long as the process used minimises toughening, cake and scones.

For white yeasted breads and fermented treats like danish pastry, puff pastry, yeasted treats like hot cross buns, fruit buns, barm bracks, crusty rolls, soft rolls, etc we would recommend Marriages Golden Crust flour as a good reliable all purpose strong breadmaking flour.

For sour dough we would recommend Marriages Uppermost Flour or Native Olands White Flour or T65 Tradition French Flour.

For baguettes, pain parisenne , French breads, pastries etc we also recommend our French range of flours. French Flour T65 tradition or French Flour T65 Farine Creme. French flours are milled slightly differently to Irish and UK flours and give greater extensibility or stretch in the dough, that can help give better quality French breads and French style bakery products.

A culinary or ‘soft’ flour normally refers to a white flour with a protein content of a maximum of 10% and is largely weak gluten forming protein properties. Sometimes this flour can be referred to as ‘All Purpose’ flour. These flours are generally used in recipes where the bakery product uses baking powder, baking soda or simple whipping of eggs or egg white with sugar on their own or with or a fat like butter or margarine to leaven or ‘aerate’ the baked item. It is not normally used for yeasted or fermented goods.

It is routinely used in cake, scone and biscuit making and includes shortcrust pastry and shortbreads. These are bakery goods where the tough elastic gluten of strong breadmaking flour is not needed and seen as a disadvantage, often causing shrinkage and mis-shapes in pastry and toughness of eat and poor volume in cake. Culinary flours are commonly used as the white flour in Irish soda bread mixed with a wholemeal flour.

Irish grown wheat is best suited for this type of flour. We recommend four flours from our range :

Kells Plain Culinary White Flour and a self raising version called Native Self Raising Plur. Then in smaller packs Marriages Plain Flour and a self raising version Marriages Self Raising Flour.

Self raising contains an amount of baking powder that allow making some bakery goods without having to add any baking powder.

Native White Spelt Plur and smaller pack size Marriages Light Spelt Flour can also double as a culinary flour, though it can contain higher levels of protein.

Yes we do. Kells has officially EU recognised certified organic flours ( Organic Certification Agent: AT-BIO-401) available to order. We have Knoll Mill T700 Organic White Wheat Flour, which is an excellent Austrian white flour suitable for yeasted and sour dough breads, as well as soda breads, and can be used in cake. We also have Knoll Mill Organic Wholemeal Flour, which is also an excellent Austrian wholemeal flour, very finely milled suitable for yeasted and sour dough breads, as well as soda breads, and can be used in cake.

You should be reassured that all flours we sell have a ‘best before’ date and NOT a ‘Use By’ date. This means that the flour is at its very best before the date given. If the flour has been stored correctly in a cool dry place (preferably NOT in a fully airtight container), the flour will be perfectly safe to bake with if the best before date has just passed. A simple check of the flour before you use it for ‘off’ aromas or any contamination will tell you if the flour is good to use.

We offer both sponge cake and cake blends or premixes in our online shop. All are delicious as well as being quick and easy to make.

A sponge (or sponge cake) is a cake made with flour, egg and sugar as the main ingredients and is a light cake that is often decorated with fresh cream and summer fruits. We offer a plain and chocolate sponge cake blends or mixes through our online store. These suit sponge cakes and swiss roll.

A cake is normally made with flour, egg, sugar and a fat (butter, margarine, vegetable oil) as the main ingredients and is a more moist and heavier cake than a sponge cake. In Kells we call some of our cake mixes ‘creme cake’ and some just ‘cake’, all will make cakes from cup cakes to large celebration cakes and loads in between!

We sell a range of white French flours milled by France’s leading flour milling family , Moulin Soufflet. French flours are graded by a ‘T’ number that is a measure of the whiteness or brightness of the flour. The lower the number the brighter the flour. Our T45 is the brightest and is normally used in France for ‘patisserie’, including cake, pastry and fancy breads where a bright white crumb colour is considered important. Our T65 flours come in two types: a traditional or ‘Tradition’ flour, meeting French requirements for use in a bread called a ‘traditional French bread’ and a ‘Mie Creme’ which is a standard white breadmaking flour. Both are used in France ordinary breads and is good for long fermentation breads. As already stated ‘Tradition’ also meets French requirements for ‘traditional French bread’.

In general French flours are milled to give more extensible or ‘stretchy’ doughs for breadmaking, compared to doughs made with UK or Irish white flours. It reflects a different approach to breadmaking. If you are using French flour for the first time and are used to UK or Irish white flours the temptation may be to reduce water slightly, but that is not always the best thing to do.

Diastatic Malted Barley flour is a completely natural milled germinated barley that when added in small amounts to a white yeasted bread or a sour dough bread recipe, gives the fermentation a natural boost by speeding breakdown of the natural occurring fermentation sugars in the flour. It also gives a richer crust colour but will not darken the crumb colour. Not always necessary, especially on flours made with UK and Irish wheats, but more useful with white flours made from North American or Central European wheats (Austrian for example). If needed usage levels would be very low…0.1% to 0.5% on the flour total added at most. For a sticky malted bread it could be added from 2% to 5% on the flour total, but on its own will not darken the bread.

Kells offers a range of high quality Belgian plain and milk chocolate couvertures in 400g and 2.5kg pouches made by Callebaut. While these can be used in all bakery applications, these quality chocolates are really designed for melting and tempering for high quality chocolate confectionery work. Kells also sells a range of medium sized (8mm x 8mm x 6mm rectangle) chocolate chunks for baking. Also made by Callebaut, these chocolates for baking are an exceptional quality Belgian chocolate. Available in dark and milk chocolates in 1kg pouches, these are especially designed to add to doughs, pastry or batters as chocolate chunks or chips that are baked and visible in the final baked treat.

At Kells we have a number of flours you could use in your favourite pancake recipe. For a traditional pancake recipe calling for ‘plain flour’ you should use a soft or culinary flour. Try our plain flour Kells Plain Culinary White Flour or you could try our Knoll Mill Organic T700 White Wheat Flour (10kg or 25kg packs). For a spelt pancake replace the plain flour with Kells White Spelt Flour. We also have Marriages Plain Flour in a smaller pack size.

We also have a The Little Mill self raising plain flour and in a smaller pack size a Marriages self raising plain flour for those recipes that ask for self raising flour.

If you want to boost goodness, texture and flavour in the pancake, try replacing part of the plain flour with The Little Mill Native Plain Wholemeal Plur or The Little Mill Native Wholemeal Spelt Plur. You may need to add a bit more liquid (milk/egg/water) to the recipe if using a wholemeal flour in place of a white flour as the wholemeal will absorb more water.

For customers looking for a ready to use mix, try our Kells Pancake Mix in a 5kg pack. It can be used to make a traditional Irish ‘rolled’ pancake, delicious with sugar and fresh lemon juice, or a thicker American style pancake, ideal with maple syrup and butter! Just read the label for instructions.

Then for that little bit of luxury, why not try one of our Callebaut Chocolates (milk or dark) with your pancake?

For the more adventurous and expert why not try Native Olands flour or Kells White Spelt flour?

If you would like to boost the healthiness of the Hot Cross Bun, why not add wholemeal goodness by replacing part or all of the strong white flour with a strong wholemeal flour like Marriages Craftman Wholemeal flour (16kg pack) or for the more expert, Knoll Mill Organic Wholemeal Flour(25kg packs). The wholemeal flour

Remember you can get high quality instant yeast, ideal for yeast raised bakery goods, from our webshop.

To really make your Hot Cross Bun indulgent why not try a chocolate and orange version adding a nice orange flavour and using milk or dark chocolate chunks from our ‘Chocolate for Baking’ range (1kg packs) instead of dried sultanas?

Delivery charges are currently €8.75 for the first 25 kg or part of 25kg ordered and a flat €17.50 for ANY order above 25kg in weight ordered through the Kells online store. So for a 16 kg bag of flour for example, the charge is €8.75. For a 25.5 kg order for a 25kg bag of flour and a 500g pack of yeast or a 75kg order for 3 x 25kg bags of flour for example, the delivery charge is €17.50.

At Kells, we want to get customers orders processed and delivered as quickly as possible. Depending on the time the order is placed it can be processed and dispatched within hours. Our on line customer service will do its best to catch an order before it is dispatched, but it will not be possible if the order has been dispatched. It will not be possible to change an order that has been placed at any stage, but if caught before dispatch, we can, of course, cancel it and refund your purchase price and you can order again. Please email customerservice@kellswholemeal.ie as soon as possible. This is normally staffed 10am to 5pm Monday to Friday excluding public holidays.

Once dispatched, unfortunately, we are unable to cancel an order. You can of course, separately arrange return of the goods to the return address on the package. On receipt of the goods in good condition, we can refund the purchase price of the goods (excluding delivery charge), but please contact Kells first to let us know you are doing this so we expect your parcel. Please email customerservice@kellswholemeal.ie as soon as possible.

Yes, you can use our free ‘click and collect’ service option. Both our sites in Bennettsbridge are closed to the general public, but you can choose to collect your order from our distribution partners warehouse Redsky Europe, IDA Business Park, Purcellsinch, Dublin Road, Kilkenny, R95 RFK0 between 10am and 4pm Monday to Friday (excludes public holidays) once you are told your order is ready by email.

If you select this option you can only collect from Redsky Europe’s address in Purcellsinch, Kilkenny.

At Kells we are keen to meet all customer type requirements if possible. If you have or work for a food business and wish to order larger pack sizes, or products you may see in our broader catalogue that are not available through our online shop, you can contact our team on sales@kellswholemeal.com and explore the possibility of opening an account with us.

As we try to process ‘click and collect’ orders to have them ready for collection on the same day, once an order is confirmed, generally it will be processed and prepared quickly. As a result we cannot say that an amendment will be possible. Staff at the collection point will not be able to change or amend your order at all.

If you have ordered something that you did not mean to , or if you want to amend your order after you confirmed it, please contact customerservice@kellswholemeal.ie before you go to collect your order and we will do what we can to accommodate you. If you want to cancel or change a confirmed order placed through click and collect, an additional service charge may be applied.

Firstly it is very rare that there are problems with orders that are dispatched. We use a reputable e-commerce fulfilment centre and reputable national courier transport companies.

However mistakes or accidents can happen and in the unlikely event of a mistake or problem with your order please email customerservice@kellswholemeal.ie as soon as possible giving your order number (on the order confirmation you got at the time of ordering) and your name and attach a picture of the item in question and outline the issue. We will respond as quickly as possible.

For account customers we cannot entertain any compliant related to the order after 48 hours have lapsed after delivery on our vehicle. For online shop customers we cannot accept any complaints relating to delivery or service once 4 weeks have lapsed since the order is placed.

As we had expected, at the moment there appear to be no additional charges for VAT or tariff applying to orders placed for delivery to Great Britain, but the matter is still evolving and the information we give may be updated as the situation develops.

As matters settle down we will be in a better position to assess any change in costs, however you can be assured we will honour all orders placed under charging arrangements in place at the time you ordered.

In the short term as the transport system to Ireland from the UK and the European Continent gets accustomed to the new ways of working, from time to time deliveries to us may be delayed resulting in short term product availability issues, but we are working to keep these to a minimum.

At the moment there appear to be no additional charges for VAT or tariff applying to trade in our type of goods between Ireland and the UK, but the matter is still evolving and the information we give may be updated as the situation develops.

As matters settle down we will be in a better position to assess any change in costs, however you can be assured we will honour all orders placed under charging arrangements in place at the time you ordered.

Customers are reminded that The Little Mill & Kells Branded products and our French and Austrian flours are unaffected by BREXIT and are available as alternatives to GB manufactured flours.

In the short term as the transport system to Ireland from the UK and the European Continent gets accustomed to the new ways of working, from time to time deliveries to us may be delayed resulting in short term product availability issues, but we are working to keep these to a minimum.