Lou (hawk307) - I live in Kansas - wheat country - and prefer flour from Kansas mills or mill my own. I find Hudson Cream Unbleached All-Purpose Flour (milled in Stafford Co., KS) one of the best, although I rarely use it now. KA/AP (13g protein) is unbleached. Being unbleached would put it in a better position than bleached National Brands (Gold Medal and Pillsbury 12+g protein) in my books. The information about protein levels is from CookWise by Shirley O. Corriher. The only use I've found for bleached flour is sprinkled in my garden to kill bugs. I wasn't all that impressed with KA/AP when I tried it years ago - mostly the price. Much of KA flour is milled in Kansas (in Topeka I believe). All their white whole wheat flour is milled in KS - I read a Kansas State University press release about that. It took until the last few years for them to buy shelf space in the grocery stores around here. We had lots of other excellent choices when it came to flour before high-priced KA. -Grainlady

Pastry flour has less gluten in it than all-purpose flour. I'd suggest using a Southern all-purpose flour like White Lily or Martha White because they have less gluten and are considered a "pastry" flour. These flours also make GREAT biscuits, quick breads and pastry - a better choice than national brand or King Arthur all-purpose flour when you need less gluten and less gluten development. You can also use all-purpose flour, just use less of it. For each cup - SIFT the all-purpose flour, measure one cup and take out 1 T. Also keep mixing to a minimum because there is more gluten in all-purpose than pastry flour. -Grainlady

This may be MORE than a challenge because the flours don't substitute in equal amounts. The coconut flour rule-of-thumb is use 1 whole egg per ounce of coconut flour or 6-eggs per 1/2 c. coconut flour. I'd suggest doing a search on-line for cake recipes using coconut flour or you may end up with a lot of wasted ingredients and time. I realize this recipe has little in common with the recipe you are trying to make, but it will give you an idea of the ratio of eggs to coconut flour for a 9" square cake. I've never made it (due to the number of eggs needed). WILLIAMSBURG ORANGE CAKE (source: Cooking with Coconut Flour by Bruce Fife, N.D.) 1/2 c. butter, melted 12 eggs 3/4 c. sugar 1 t. salt 1 t. vanilla 1 c. SIFTED coconut flour 1 t. baking powder 1/2 c. golden raisins, cut up 1/2 c. nuts, finely chopped 1 T. grated orange peel Blend together butter, eggs, sugar, salt, and vanilla. Combine coconut flour with baking powder and whisk into batter until there are no lumps. Fold in raisins, nuts, and orange peel. Pour batter equally into 2 greased 8 or 9x1-1/2-inch layer cake pans or one 9x9x2-inch pan. Bake at 350-degrees for 30-35 minutes or until knife inserted into center comes out clean. Cool. Cover with Williamsburg Butter Frosting. WILLIAMSBURG BUTTER FROSTING 1/2 c. butter, softened 4-1/2 c. powdered sugar 4-5 T. orange flavored liqueur or orange juice 1 T. grated orange peel Combine all ingredients and beat with an electric beater until smooth. REDUCED SUGAR WILLIAMSBURG BUTTER CAKE Make Williamsburg Butter Cake as directed but reduce sugar to 1/4 to 1/2 c. depending on desired sweetness, add 3 T. powdered or liquid stevia, and 1/3 c. coconut milk. If using liquid stevia, add it to the wet ingredients. If using powdered stevia, combine it with the coconut flour before mixing into the wet ingredients. Bake at 350-degrees F for 40-50 minutes or until knife inserted into center comes out clean.

--Whole wheat pastry flour is milled from low-gluten, low-protein, soft wheat varieties. I use soft white wheat for pastry flour, or anywhere I don't need a lot of gluten development. Spelt is another good wholegrain choice when you don't need a lot of gluten development. Spelt has a gluten level that is 5,000 parts per million; compared to wheat which begins at 50,000 parts per million and go up from there. --Technically, "all-purpose" flour was developed commercially for bleached/unbleached flour from a mixture of hard wheat and soft wheat. There's enough hard wheat so it has enough gluten to make yeast breads, and enough soft wheat flour so it makes decent quick breads, pastry or cakes - so it covers "all purposes", but it's NOT the optimum choice of flour for most things, other than soft dinner rolls. We've just developed our flour use from the most common commercial flour available - all-purpose - with occasional moves to Southern all-purpose for biscuits and quick breads, and the even more elusive cake flour for beautiful tender cakes. Even in the world of commercial bleached/unbleached all-purpose flour there are great differences... Northern all-purpose flour (King Arthur and Robin Hood - 11-12) have a higher protein level than National Brands (Gold Medal and Pillsbury 10-12). Southern all-purpose flour (7.5-9.5) is milled from soft wheat, so it's best used for quick breads, biscuits, muffins, pastry, cookies, cakes - foods where you don't want a lot of gluten development. A mix of 3:2 hard wheat to soft white wheat is a great "all-purpose" mixture when you want soft yeast rolls. Otherwise, choosing a mix of hard wheat and soft wheat is less than optimum for other baked goods. --Whole wheat "bread" flour would mean a high protein level milled from hard wheat. Bleached/Unbleached bread flour has a protein level of 13-14. I've milled wheat that was 16% protein and made yeast bread with it, but it takes a lot more kneading to develop the gluten and you find you have tough bread as a result of the high protein level. This also happens when you add too much vital wheat gluten to a recipe, so more (protein/gluten) is not necessarily better. The protein levels of wheat I purchase is generally between 13% and 14% protein, which is more than enough to raise a lofty loaf of bread. If you tend to get short squatty loaves of 100% whole wheat bread, there are other factors you need to address besides protein/gluten levels - such as stop using a (quick mix) direct dough method and switch to a sponge method. A sponge will help soften the bran - the sharp edges of bran can cut the gluten strands. A sponge method also helps develop the gluten without kneading. Adding an acid ingredient (vinegar, lemon juice, ascorbic acid, etc) to the recipe has a positive effect. There is a substance in wheat germ called Gluthione which breaks down the gluten strands. Adding an acid, such as ascorbic acid, counteracts the negative effects of Glutathione. Ascorbic acid helps to prevent the gluten bonds from breaking down and will repair the gluten bonds, so you'll get a high-rising loaf of 100% whole wheat bread. I generally add 1/8 t. ascorbic acid per loaf of bread when making bread that includes wheatgerm (as a single ingredient or from whole wheat flour). -Something we tend to forget, or possibly didn't even know, hard wheat wasn't even available for milling until the late 1870's when the German Mennonites arrived here in Kansas and brought the granddad of all hard winter wheat varieties, Turkey Red, with them from Europe. Prior to the developing of the hard winter varieties of wheat, all flour was milled from soft wheat. The mills liked soft wheat for milling into flour because it was easy to grind in one pass through the mill, and had a much larger extraction of flour. Soft wheat tends to be a plumper seed with more endosperm, while hard winter wheat is small and rather wrinkled with more bran and less endosperm. You can tell the difference between hard and soft wheat when you mill it at home - the hard wheat flour is more coarse and gritty from the bran, while soft wheat renders a very soft, talcum powder feeling flour. --"Bread flour" or high protein flour milled from hard wheat, was available to commercial bakers and they referenced it by calling it "strong" wheat flour. Strong and weak wheats indicate a wheat or flour's baking strength. It wasn't until the advent of the bread machine in the 1980's that high-gluten bread flour became available for home use. Up until that time all-purpose flour, which is a medium-protein level flour, was about the only kind of flour available for home use. If "whole wheat bread flour" is called for, it means use a "regular" whole wheat flour which is milled from hard wheat, instead of "pastry" whole wheat flour, which is milled from soft wheat. -Grainlady