Flour Family

The idea for writing about this subject came from reading The Bread Bakers Apprentice by: Peter Reinhart. I loved the way he wrote about bread and its processes. Flour may not seem like an interesting ingredient to read about. But a cook should always be well informed about the ingredients they use. By learning about these base ingredients, a cook can develop a better understanding of recipes that they use and create.

Many cooks can get caught up with choosing between bleached and unbleached flour. Both are technically bleached, with unbleached flour being aged to ‘bleach’ over time and the process for bleached flour uses artificial means to achieve a ‘bleached’ product. For more information on this subject, check out this link to an article by The Kitchn https://www.thekitchn.com/whats-the-difference-between-bleached-and-unbleached-flour-223858

Gluten is an elastic protein created in a wheat flour dough or batter. It is made up of many different proteins that can be divided into two categories called glutenin and gliadin. Gliadin gives the dough elasticity and glutenin gives the dough strength.

*Important Note*: Check you flour expiration date! Flour can stay fresh only for so long in your pantry and effect your finished product. Raw flour can also carry the e-coli virus, this is the real worry I have when eating raw cookie dough (I’m a bad bitch raw eggs cant kill me) so make sure to bake the flour before making cookie dough to eat raw (no judgement, we’ve all been there).

 Wheat Based Flours

Durum Flour: This plant is the second most common wheat in the world and is rich in gluten. The gluten content in this flour is best for making pastas and breads

Whole Wheat Flour: This high protein flour is made from the hard wheat berry, and best for bread recipes with a hard crust like Sourdough Bread.

All Purpose Flour: Usually just referred to as flour in a recipe, this product is made from wheat grains with the bran removed. The bran is the outer covering for wheat grain protecting the endosperm and germ.

Semolina: This wheat by-product is coarse and made from durum wheat. Most familiarly this product is used in Pasta dough, and couscous. I recently discovered the Greek custard dessert that uses semolina, Galaktoboureko. There is also an Indian dish called Umpa made from semolina and rice flour

Clear Flour: Clear flour is leftover after milling a patent flour. This product is not usually sold in regular markets, I recently learned about it while reading The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. It is usually added to rye flour-based recipes for a better rise in the product and better mouthfeel.

00 Flour: This high-quality Italian flour has a much higher gluten content than All-Purpose flour, so is better used for a denser product in pastas, or breads. Breads that use 00 flour have a pillowy, light end product like focaccia, ciabatta or a basic sandwich loaf.

Cake Flour: This flour is milled to have low levels of gluten to create a softer and more tender finished product in baked goods. Because this flour is ground so fine, it is much more likely to clump. But this problem is easily fixed with sifting. This delicate flour works well with light sponge cake recipes.

Pastry Flour: Pastry flour has a slightly higher level of protein than cake flour and works the same way as cake flour in pastries. But the slight difference in protein between the two lends to different recipes. Pastry flour works better with denser recipes like cookies.

Other Commonly used Flours that contain gluten

Cornmeal: A product of dried corn; this flour comes in fine, medium, and coarse grinds. Fine ground cornmeal is also called corn flour. And anyone who has made their own corn tortillas knows about Masa, a fine ground cornmeal that has been soaked in an alkaline liquid. Other dishes made with cornmeal are polenta and Wo Tou. Polenta is a common side dish of boiled cornmeal from Italy, and Wo Tou is a steamed bread that is cornmeal based from Northern China. While cornmeal is usually gluten free, sometimes this product does contain gluten so be extra careful if you need to be.

Rye Flour: Rye flours can be broken into two categories, Dark Rye and White Rye. Rye is a grass that is closely related to wheat and barley. Dark rye is most recognized in pumpernickel bread, and white rye has little rye flavor, so it is usually paired with dark rye in recipes. This flour is high in gliadin and low in glutenin so even though it has a lower gluten content than wheat flour, rye flour has more elasticity.

Buckwheat Flour: This ‘flour’ is actually more closely related to rhubarb than wheat and is naturally gluten free. Soba, or buckwheat-based noodles are popular in China, Japan, Korea and even Italy. Buckwheat is used in many cultures for breakfast foods like porridge but I found buckwheat pancake recipes from Russia, France, Belgium and America.

Barley Flour: Barley is a grass that is primarily used in beer production and used to make a porridge or soup in multiple cultures. It is also used in bread recipes on its own or with other flours because it has a very small amount of gluten.

Best Gluten Free Substitutes

A note for my gluten intolerant and celiac readers: one of the best gluten free flours to my limited knowledge is called Cup 4 Cup, this product is called this because it can seamlessly replace regular flour in any recipe. Soon I will be writing about using wheat flour substitutes and testing some with common recipes like pasta or bread.

Almond Flour: This product adds a subtle nutty flavor to old favorite recipes, as well as packing in protein. If converting a recipe that only uses regular wheat flour, replacing a quarter of the amount with almond flour is a good rule of thumb. Almond flour can also be a good substitute for breadcrumbs in a recipe; either for breading or holding together a meatball. This flour is a good substitute for those suffering from celiac that want to make recipes they grew up with. This flour has a 1:2 conversion ratio for all-purpose flour to almond flour (3C all-purpose = 6C almond flour).

Coconut Flour: A gluten free flour that is high in fiber and healthy fats. This flour is popular with people on a gluten free or paleo diet who happen to have nut allergies and cannot use almond flour. Just like almond flour, coconut flour is a great substitute for breadcrumbs in a recipe. Prone to clumping, so make sure to sift or whisk to break up before adding to a recipe. Cooking with this flour can be difficult because of its absorbency, when converting you want a 1:1 ratio of liquid to flour.

Rice Flour: Rice flour is the main ingredient in most gluten free flours, usually brown rice flour with the addition of xantham gum (thickening and stabilizing agent). It is used in many Asian countries and Latin America. India uses rice flour to make dosa (fermented dough cooked in a thin ‘pancake’), roti (flatbread), and puttu (steamed cylinders of coconut and rice flour, usually for breakfast).

Chickpea Flour: Also called gram flour or besan. Popular in south Asian cuisine like India, Bangladesh, or Nepal. There are many Indian snacks that are chickpea based, two of which are called sev, and boondi. Sev is made with chickpea flour and shaped into a crispy noodle, Boondi is a sweetened and fried chickpea flour based dessert. Italy and Spain use this flour to make baked pancakes or fitters.