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Types Of Flours
For Everyday Baking by
Dennis Weaver
How many different kinds of
flour are there? We just opened a commercial flour
catalog and counted 28. These were flours that
were available from one mill for the Western United
States. At last count, we had 16 on hand for our
test kitchen.
Matching the flour to the product that you are
baking is one of the keys to successful baking.
While the commercial baker has access to dozens
of specialized flours, we can do quite well with
just a few in our kitchens. With those few, you
can match the flour to the product you are baking
and create your own blends for the effect that
you want.
The Role of Gluten
Before we begin to examine types of flour, let’s
understand gluten. Gluten is made of the proteins
found in wheat flour and gives
its structure, strength, and texture. Without
these marvelous little proteins,
would not be bread. It also explains why it is
so hard to make
from rice, potato, rye, or oat flour and why wheat
flour has to be added to these to make bread—only
wheat has enough protein to make bread. The gluten
makes the bread.
Gluten is developed in the dough when the proteins
absorb water and are pulled and stretched in the
kneading process. When water is mixed with flour,
the protein in the flour absorbs moisture. When
dough is worked by mixing or kneading, two types
of protein come together into strands—tiny ropes
of gluten. As the yeast produces gases in the
dough, mostly carbon dioxide, these strands trap
the gas bubbles and the dough expands. When we
put the
in the oven, the gluten strands coagulate or solidify
much as the protein in eggs solidifies as the
egg cooks.
A high protein content is necessary for great
and a low protein content is required for the
tender crumb we love in cakes. During baking,
this protein coagulates just as the proteins in
an egg coagulate in the heat of a frying pan.
It’s this coagulated protein that gives
its chewiness. In a cake, we don’t want chewiness
so we use a low protein content flour. Furthermore,
we use a shortening (commercial shortening, butter,
margarine, or oil) to lubricate and shorten the
gluten strands. (Hence the descriptive name “shortening”.)
You can see how much protein is in flour by comparing
ingredient labels.
flours will have as much as 14% protein. All-purpose
flour is usually in the eight to ten percent range
and cake flour is less than that.
A typical
flour (this one happens to be a General Mills
flour) has 12% protein, 75% carbohydrates, one
percent fat, less than one percent ash, and 14%
moisture. (If exposed to air, the moisture content
will change and affect the baker’s formulation.)
The White Flours
By far, the western world consumes more white
flour than any other. We can buy bleached or unbleached,
bread, all-purpose, self-rising, cake, and pastry.
We can buy flour made with soft Southern wheat
or hard winter wheat. They are all different,
each with an intended purpose. The choice of flour
will make a profound difference in most baked
goods.
Bleached or Unbleached?
Should you use bleached or unbleached flour? Chlorine
is the common bleaching agent used to whiten flour
(though some millers use benzoyl peroxide). Many
store breads use bleached flour to obtain the
whiteness that we associate with commercial white
bread. While the FDA has approved the use of chlorine
in flour, you may prefer to avoid the additives
and use flour that has not been bleached. Chlorine
tends to damage the proteins in flour and therefore
weaken the gluten structure in bread.
The natural tone of unbleached wheat flour is
cream-colored. If you don’t mind the ivory or
cream color of products made with unbleached flour,
by all means use that. The only bleached flour
that we use is bleached cake flour when we want
to obtain the pure white texture we prefer in
white cakes. In yellow cakes or chocolate cakes,
we use unbleached pastry flour. If you switch
from bleached to unbleached flour in your
recipes, be aware that the two flours may exhibit
different performance characteristics and you
may need to make minor changes in the recipe.
Bromated or Unbromated?
In your grocery store, you may find either bromated
flour or flour that has not been bromated.
flours have to age or oxidize before they perform
well. The time and expense of natural oxidation
is not practical in commercial operations and
the results are not often uniform.
So the industry has explored means of speeding
the process along and using bromates is one of
them. The FDA has ruled bromates to be safe and
legal (though California outlawed bromates in
1991 as a possible carcinogen and most of Europe
will not allow bromates). If you are not comfortable
with bromates, look for flour that has been treated
with ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) or other chemicals
instead of bromates.
Bread, All-Purpose, Self-Rising,
Pastry, or Cake Flour?
Dominant on grocery store shelves are
flours, all-purpose flours, and cake and pastry
flours.
flours have a high protein content--10% to 14%--necessary
to give
the chewy texture and open “crumb” appearance
that we cherish in our breads. (We’ll talk about
how protein works in just a moment.) Cake and
pastry flours have a low protein content to create
the soft, crumbly, melt-in-your-mouth texture
that we prefer in our desserts.
All-purpose flour is a compromise between the
protein content in
flours and the protein in pastry flours. All-purpose
flours make acceptable
and pastries but more specialized products are
more reliable performers in either spectrum. That’s
why you will rarely see all-purpose flour in a
commercial bakery.
Self-rising flours have salt and leaveners added.
Because we cannot control the amount or type of
leavener used or the amount of salt in the flour,
we rarely use self-rising flour. Some bakers use
self-rising flour for their favorite biscuits.
Cake flour is almost always bleached; pastry flours
are usually unbleached. Don’t hesitate to use
unbleached pastry flour for cakes. Unbleached
pastry flours make wonderful cakes but white cakes
will be ivory, rather than white, in color. Of
course, with a yellow or chocolate cake, it will
not make a difference.
So what flour should I buy?
Buy flours for their intended uses—bread flour
for breads and pastry flours for pastries plus
all-purpose flours for gravies and other general
uses. Keep in mind that most recipes—except
recipes--were developed with all-purpose flour
since that is what is common in nearly all kitchens.
You may wish to use all-purpose flour for a new
recipe and then switch to a specialty flour after
you become familiar with the recipe.
We recommend that you try different brands—there
is a surprising difference in performance between
brands--and then stick with what works for you.
In our experience, name brands tend to consistently
hold to a specification where less expensive brands
tend to vary from season to season and sometimes,
even lot to lot. If you really want to broaden
your selection, make friends with a baker since
he or she has available a vast array of flours
each with its own specification. Buy a bag or
two of flour from your baker and try it. Flour
is inexpensive and your baker will be able to
supply you with a detailed specification so that
you can see what you are getting.
Whole Wheat Flour
The wheat kernel is composed of three parts: the
bran which forms the hard outer coating of the
kernel, the smaller germ which is the embryonic
portion of the kernel as the yolk is to an egg,
and the starchy endosperm. In the milling of white
flour, the bran is cracked from the kernel and
discarded and most of the germ is removed leaving
the endosperm.
In whole wheat flour, both the bran and the germ
are left with the flour. Since the germ has a
high fat content and fat can go rancid, whole
wheat flours are much more likely to spoil. Also,
since the flour is composed of the entire wheat
kernel, whole wheat flour is not enriched with
vitamin additives as white flour is. (The federal
government specifies the addition of vitamins
to white flour. See the nutritional comparison
of enriched white flour to whole wheat flour in
this lesson.) Whole wheat flour can be purchased
in either a fine ground or coarse ground texture.
Most but not all of the “brown” breads produced
commercially are made from a blend of white
flour and fine ground whole wheat with about 40%
of the flour content being whole wheat. The white
flour tempers the whole wheat providing a slightly
milder taste without the bitterness that whole
wheat sometimes carries. The white flour also
creates a stronger gluten structure since
flour typically has a higher protein content than
whole wheat alone. Additionally, the bran in whole
wheat has sharp edges that cut gluten strands
as it is kneaded.
Graham flour is whole wheat flour. One day in
the office we had a stirring debate as to just
what graham flour was—a whole wheat flour with
extra bran, whole wheat flour from soft wheat,
or a more coarsely ground whole wheat. We contacted
Technical Services at General Mills. They quoted
chapter and verse. FDA’s Code of Federal Regulations
allows any whole wheat flour to be called graham
flour. So it depends on the miller; read the package
carefully to see just what you are getting.
Other Flours
Cornmeal, like wheat flour, can be purchased with
or without the germ and in a fine or a coarse
ground form. For cornmeal with the germ removed,
look for the term “degerminated” on the label.
Degerminated cornmeal keeps longer--since the
fatty germ is removed--but is not as nutritionally
complete as cornmeal with the germ.
The word “meal” refers to products that are not
as finely ground as flour. Both cornmeal and corn
flour are available. Polenta is usually coarsely
ground.
Rye flour is used extensively in pumpernickel
and rye breads. It can be purchased in light rye,
medium rye, and dark rye flours. White rye is
especially prized by the bakers of artisan loaves
and creates a mild, uniquely-flavored
with a taste that is described as being sourdough-like.
Because rye proteins do not form the gluten strands
necessary to create structure,
made with rye flour alone is heavy and dense.
Accordingly, when making breads with rye flour,
add two to three times as much high protein content
flour as rye flour. Often extra wheat gluten is
added.
The flavor most of us associate with rye
comes from the caraway seeds in the bread. If
your family says they don’t like rye bread, make
it without the caraway seeds. They will probably
find this
very good. At the end of this lesson, you will
find a recipe calling for rye flour and no caraway
seeds.
Oats are used in baking in various forms: rolled,
quick, steel cut, and flour. (Steel cut oats are
quick oats that are not flattened.) Oat bran can
also be purchased. Oat products are most generally
used with chemically leavened products like scones
and muffins. Rolled oats added to yeasted
make for a wonderful chewy texture and moistness.
Buckwheat flour is often used in pancakes and
sometimes in breads. Buckwheat is not really a
grain but a seed. Because there are no proteins
to form gluten, buckwheat adds little structure
to the baked product. It is most commonly used
in pancakes but is sometimes added to breads.
Potato flour is an important component in the
baker’s arsenal. Unlike wheat flour, it is hygroscopic—that
is, it attracts water instead of dries out—so
that the staling process in breads is retarded
or slowed. One tablespoon of potato flour to two
cups of wheat flour will extend the life of your
and keep it moist. We use potato flours extensively
in our breads.
Copyright 2007, The Prepared
Pantry (http://www.prepraredpantry.com ). Published
by permission in the Article
Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Dennis
Weaver is a baker, a recipe designer, and a writer.
He has written many baking guides and How
to Bake, a comprehensive baking and reference
e-book--available free at The
Prepared Pantry which sells baking and cooking
supplies and has a free online baking library.
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