Interesting that you posted a question that was on my mind last night. Not this particular recipe, but I had run out of AP flour and was searching for anything to finish out the recipe (I was about 1 cup short for a double batch). I decided to wing it and used 1/2 cup cake flour and 1/2 cup bread flour. Everything was fine and the banana bread is delish.

What is ironic is I had no idea about the weights/density or whatever, I just went with my gut! Based on your research above seems like you have shown that it is a reasonable substitute. THANKS!

Alexa

1. All-purpose flour is milled from a mixture of hard and soft wheat. As the name indicates, it's been blended to meet ALL purposes, but that also means it doesn't meet the standards for professional bakers who want "strong" flour (from hard wheat) and "weak" flour (from soft wheat).

Not all All-Purpose Flour is created equal - the amounts of protein have a very wide range. Protein levels vary between Northern All-Purpose, Southern All-Purpose and National Brand All-Purpose, but they are all considered "all-purpose flour".

All-purpose is a purely commercialized flour for the masses that is actually too high in protein from the hard wheat to make great baked goods where you don't want a lot of gluten development (quick breads, biscuits, some cookies, pastry, etc.) and not enough gluten for really great yeast breads. About the only thing all-purpose flour is optimum for is soft dinner rolls.

2. Cake flour is milled from soft wheat ONLY.

3. Bread flour is milled from hard wheat ONLY.

"Hard" and "Soft" are terms of primary interest to millers in describing the texture of the endosperm and how it breaks down in milling, but the terms are also related to bread-making strength. If you ever mill your own flour and you forget whether the flour is milled from hard or soft wheat, all you need to do is to rub the flour between your fingers. Soft wheat is soft like talcum flour and hard wheat is gritty.

Professional bakers are more interested in the "baking strength", and that's my guess why the different flour types were used and where the different attributes to baking will be found - although it's a little obsessive and somewhat detailed. You would get cookies no matter what type of flour you used - they would just have slight differences most people would never notice.

--Weight VS Cupping: Unfortunately, there are not any "standard" measures to convert from dry cup measurements for flour to weight measurements. It's all over the place depending on the "expert" or chart. And to add to that, there are not any "standards" for measuring cups themselves!!!

And another aspect of flour, whether measuring in a cup or by weight -- due to the fluctuating amount of moisture in flour, that can significantly alter the weight.

--Always consider flour measurements in recipes as just a good (or bad) guess.
--We don't all use the same brands of flour.
--Flour will vary in moisture and protein level from bag-to-bag, brand-to-brand, and season-to-season - so it can never be an "exact" measure no matter how it's measured. Nor will it react with the wet ingredients in exactly the same way each time due to those even slight differences.
--We can't be sure how the author of the recipe measured flour....

I always remember a valuable lesson in high school where the girls in the Junior class were supposed to make the exact same recipe for brownies to sell at some function. There were no two finished recipes alike. And the decades I've spent as a Foods Judge have only proved the differences.

Other things that can affect all baked goods, including cookies, is how much they are mixed. I'm a proponent for using a Danish Dough Whisk for incorporating dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in almost any type of dough or batter. Too many people over-beat things using stand mixers these days. The more the dough is mixed, the more gluten is developed - and that's from all gluten-containing flour no matter what type it is. The more gluten develops, the tougher the cookies. This isn't necessarily about what's right or wrong, or good or bad - it's knowing the characteristics each type of flour brings to a recipe and the end result you want. If you want tough cookies, by all means over-beat them in a stand mixer - just don't take them to the Fair for judging. If you want really crunchy cookies, that's different than tough cookies, and in that case you could use 10-20% rice flour in the recipe (you can mill rice in a coffee/spice mill).

As a home miller, if I want a low-protein "cake" flour, I'll mill a 3:1 mix of soft wheat and oat or spelt, which makes a "cake" flour suitable for even the most delicate chiffon cake. It doesn't require toxic bleached cake flour to get the same result.

So that's just a brief on flour science...... ;-)

-Grainlady

Continuing with bbstx's thoughts about weighing ingredients ... King Arthur Flour gives one weight per cup of its all-purpose flour, and the America's Test Kitchen / Cook's Illustrated family of publications gives a different one. I wonder if the different weights is because ATK is using "grocery store" flour such as Gold Medal or Pillsbury, and that it is quite different from KAF. (Sorry, I don't have the details handy, but there is a large difference between the two.)

Grainlady, thank you for your wealth of information. Even though the OP asked no questions about dough whisks, I am so glad you mentioned it. I've seen them before, but really had no idea what they were or how they were used. I ordered one today on your recommendation and can't wait to use it!

Alice - It's not just ATK vs KA, everybody seems to have their own idea of what flour weights. Different weights between differ types? Bbstx's source says yes, as does a conversion chart I'm looking at. But the labels on my KA bread and AP flours read the same: 30 grams per quarter cup.

I prefer using weight as a measure, but with flour in particular I don't consider it any more accurate than a measuring cup unless the recipe was originally written by weight, or, rewritten by someone who actually tested it rather than simply base it on a conversion chart of their choosing.

I think Jacques Torres is probably trying to control the amount of gluten by specifying two kinds of flours. Bread and cake flours have a smaller range of variation than AP flours. They're added at the same time, so basically he's just making his own AP flour.
I probably would ignore it, but then I never use higher-gluten AP flour like King Arthur in cookies.
Looks like what really makes those cookies distinctive is the chocolate disks making the thin layers of chocolate.

GL, I knew you would have an explanation. One day perhaps I'll make the recipe with cake & bread flour and a second batch with AP flour and compare the two. I suspect that my palate is not sufficiently educated to tell the difference.

Thank you all for your comments and observations.

cc, I don't have access to the chocolate disks. I make them with Ghiradelli's 60% cocao chips which are sort of thin and flat. The JT cookies are a lot better than regular Toll House. I think the sea salt sprinkle adds an interesting note.

The discussion brought back lots of memories! Before I came to my senses about thirty years ago, I thought I would retire and open a bakery. To plan for that I took several years of baking classes. Our instructor insisted that we recognize all flours by touch as mix ups in large barrels can happen. My preference is still with weighing all ingredients and I use just one brand of flour for each type. It brings consistency into the mix.

This was a test comparing self-rising flours, but the photos are VERY useful, and will be of interest to anyone who has struggled with that simple-yet-difficult dilemma of the perfect cut biscuit!

I don't agree at all that "most people can't tell the difference". They may not know why there's a difference, but they can certainly tell that there is. My spouse is testimony to that! That's why he has me to explain it to him (smile).

Here is a link that might be useful: Cooking On The Side tests three flours for results

jkom, many thanks! That was really interesting.

DD decided she was going to learn to make "scratch" biscuits. She used White Lily but not self-rising. They were similar to the hockey pucks the blogger made. I thought it was because she had overworked the dough. After reading this blog post, I'm wondering if she should try again with self-rising.

My mother always scorned self-rising flour. I'm not sure why other than she is generally scornful of anything that appears to be a convenience. Maybe I ought to re-think my mom-instilled aversion to self-rising flour.

I second the danish dough whisk. It is a miracle worker. It has made such a difference in my mixing,... and a recent scale purchase. I've started to pay close attention to different flours and weights.

The original recipe on the ny times website has the flour listed in weight. No need to convert. The website you used appears to have removed the weights. I love this recipe and usually have a batch in the freezer.

Chocolate chip recipe
Published: July 9, 2008
Adapted from Jacques Torres

Related
Perfection? Hint: It’s Warm and Has a Secret (July 9, 2008)

Time: 45 minutes (for 1 6-cookie batch), plus at least 24 hours’ chilling

2 cups minus 2 tablespoons
(8 1/2 ounces) cake flour
1 2/3 cups (8 1/2 ounces) bread flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) light brown sugar
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract
1 1/4 pounds bittersweet chocolate disks or fèves, at least 60 percent cacao content (see note)
Sea salt.
1. Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.

2. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Drop chocolate pieces in and incorporate them without breaking them. Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.