Baking what? Which flour?

King Arthur unbleached is "heavy" (more protein). I use it for white breads that call for AP (most want bread flour, which is heavier yet) but it's not really good for cake. I recently made a cake recipe that called for a combination of unbleached AP and a smaller amount of cake flour (which is very light). That's basically creating your own lighter AP, which is a combination of different kinds of wheat to come in the middle of bread and cake.

I use Gold Medal AP (bleached) for plain old cake. I like a denser rather than fluffier cake for most purposes. I also use it for cookies, muffins (which are a kind of cake) and pie crust. It's also okay in very light, rich breads. If I want a feather light cake, I use Swans Down cake flour.

Bakers - know your wheat and wheat products before choosing your flour. This is what I teach in my grains and milling classes. You can improve your baked goods by knowing about the flour and the differences in them.

All-purpose is a "designer" flour milled from a mixture of hard and soft wheat, and is designed to be suitable (really just good enough) for "all purposes", but it's not the ultimate choice for anything, with a few exceptions. You want hard wheat for certain baking characteristics, and soft wheat for others. We've adapted our recipes to all-purpose flour for the sake of convenience. There are many differences in the end results if you choose the "right" flour for the right purpose. There are also several different categories of "all-purpose flour", and they each have different uses and purposes in baking, and baking characteristics.

In National brands of all-purpose flour there is enough hard wheat (higher-gluten level) for making decent breads, and enough soft wheat flour (low-gluten level) for quick breads, pastry, cookies, which normally don't need a lot of gluten formation, but those aren't the best flour choices for any of those things. The one thing that works well with all-purpose flour is soft dinner rolls. Even when milling my own flour for dinner rolls, I mill a mix of hard and soft wheat (3:2 hard wheat and soft wheat). When I mill 100% wholegrain "cake" flour, I mix soft white wheat with a low-gluten grain like spelt or oats (3:1 mix).

As a foods judge at fairs, you can ultimately tell the difference between a cake that was made with cake flour (milled from soft wheat) and the one that is made with all-purpose - and especially if they used a bleached high-protein Northern all-purpose, which is better suited for yeast breads, cream puffs, puff pastry. While an unbleached Northern all-purpose flour is great for yeast breads, cream puffs, puff pastry, pasta, and pizza - NOT cake. While Southern all-purpose flours are almost always bleached and best used for pie crusts, biscuits, quick breads and muffins. Definitely NOT yeast breads, yet they all are "all-purpose" flour. This is what divides good baked goods from great baked goods.

Whether to use bleached or unbleached is a choice, but you can expect the end result to have slightly different results - so choose accordingly. There is a slightly darker color when using unbleached flour, or you can choose bleached for a lighter product. There is slightly more gluten in unbleached than bleached. You can often get a finer product by using bleached flour over unbleached. Baking characteristics will be different, even if just slightly, but that, once again is a choice.

If you have ever been present when a tanker full of bleached flour is delivered, you would never consider this type of flour safe to consume, even though it is "recognized as safe". The hatches are opened and the off-gassing is horrible from the chemicals used to bleach the flour. This is one reason unbleached flour has grown in popularity in the last 10-15 years, but I have also seen baking characteristics change by using unbleached flour when bleached would actually be the better choice. That is according to fair judging characteristics, not personal preferences.

-Grainlady

For years I"ve used bleached flour for cookies and cakes, both because of its slightly different chemistry (see Rose Levy Beranbaum) and because manufacturers use a lower-protein wheat for their bleached flour. I use King Arthur AP for yeast baking. It is unbleached and its gluten content is high. So that's two kinds of white flour always on hand. Then this year I thought back on some of our old favorites; wasn't the blueberry coffee cake even better years ago? Well, years ago, King Arthur wasn't in stores, I never bought bleached flour except for cake flour. I used Ceresota unbleached AP for almost everything. Ceresota is not as high-protein as KA and more of a real all-purpose flour. So I got some again, and yes, I do like using it. So now I have three kinds of white flour always on hand!

I buy unbleached flour. Don't use it very often. For dusting chicken breasts, cookies a few times a year and the occasional dessert. Haven't made bread in a couple years, but when I did I used unbleached bread flour.

Grainlady: How do you find out what wheat is used in each brand and type of flour?

Unbleached. King Arthur and Gold Medal when I feel frugal. Jeff and Zoe of abinfive test their recipes with Gold Medal so then it is good enough for me, too.

This list of protein content of flour has been circulating around the 'net for years. I think this is the origin. Scroll down to Antilope's post. I believe this was assembled from talking to the companies. Rounding error makes them all look the same on the nutrition labels, but the fractions can make a real difference.

Thank You, Pillog! That answered my question and the chart should be a big help.

Grainlady, I thought you were gluten free?

I have been milling my own wheat, but other than for hot cereal, my baking results have varied from edible to abysmal, nothing has been wonderful made with it. (shrug)

I like King Arthur AP for white bread, I do use cake flour for some lighter cakes but use King Arthur AP for cookies and quickbreads. I did have some White Lily for biscuits but frankly I was not happy with the texture, the biscuits were too tender and just fell apart into crumbles. So, right now I have cake flour, AP King Arthur, White Lily, some 00 flour Elery bought for a pizza crust recipe that insisted on that particular thing (although I didn't think it was any more wonderful eiher) and white whole wheat, regular whole wheat and my own home ground. I use them all for different purposes. Sometimes it's worth the specialty flour, but many times the difference in final product is negligible enough that it's not.

I buy some bleached and some unbleached and haven't really been able to tell a significant difference in those either.

Annie

I guess my standards aren't high enough. I use unbleached AP for everything, but I do very little baking. When I do, cookies, cakes, brownies, etc are all made with organic unbleached. There is a local wheat grower who has an organic white whole wheat flour that I buy when I can find it and I use it just like the unbleached.

I got the latest Rose Levy Beranbaum baking book from the library because it was supposed to be so good. I even went out and, pinching my nose and closing my eyes, bought bleached flour due to her stern advice that it was the only flour to use for cookies. Then I picked out a cookie recipe to try, and guess what - it called for unbleached flour. Aargh. (I tried a bread recipe and the cookie recipe from her book. They were overly complicated and the results just so-so. I returned the book to the library, thankful I hadn't paid good money for it.)

So, I have on hand my usual King Arthur AP flour which I have used for all my white flour baking (till now) and I have a bag of White Wings bleached white flour. I'm going to start my cookie baking tonight, so I'll try using it instead of the King Arthur.

Sally

Annie -

Yep, I'm gluten-free (3-years - gluten-intolerance, not celiac disease) but I still teach all kinds of classes, and do even more 1 on 1 mentoring through the Extension Office than classes these days (yeast and naturally-leavened bread, bread machine, grains and milling), just as I have for the past 25-years. I no longer judge foods at fairs due to gluten-intolerance, but I still train new judges.

Even though I have eliminated gluten, I still mill my own flour when I make wheat-based baked goods (or other gluten-containing grains) for the rest of the family or visiting guests, as well as milling my own gluten-free flours from a variety of grains/seeds/beans. I just don't make 100% whole wheat bread nearly every week like I did before going gluten-free. I'm busy making all our gluten-free breads and baked goods now, as well as still developing sorghum recipes for a local mill.

About your bread challenges.... These may be some reasons why you have so much trouble using home-milled flour. The type of wheat you purchased, the fineness of the milled flour (fine flour = fine bread - coarse flour = coarse bread), or failure to add an acid to the dough (1/8 t. ascorbic acid powder per loaf) to counteract the damage to the gluten from Glutathione found in wheat germ (which leads to short squatty loaves with a coarse grain).

My panned loaves of enriched 100% whole wheat bread are as high-rising and nearly as fine a texture as white bread - but that didn't happen until I started using the sponge method and adding ascorbic acid.

If you are using a straight dough method (best suited for white bread and light wheat using commercial bleached/unbleached flours - a more modern method designed for making bread quickly), instead of using an old-fashioned sponge method (which is best suited for wholegrain flours), that may be a contributing factor as well. Some of the heirloom wheat varieties, when freshly-milled into wholegrain flour, require 2-day processes for making good bread - usually due to the low amount of gluten in these old varieties. Remember, before the 1870's and the advent of hard red winter wheat being grown in Kansas, all wheat, and the milled flour, was from soft wheat varieties. So -- soft wheat can be used for making bread, it just won't be the high-rising loaves of bread made in an hour in a bread machine, and there are older technics used.

I've also done tests for a mill that had hard winter wheat with a 16% protein level (which is very high), and you have to knead it nearly forever to get that much protein developed when using a straight dough method - but it's a cinch when you use a soaked flour method, and you need very little kneading.

My knowledge is from years of training as a foods judge at fairs using judging standards for what characteristics are considered "best" for the baked goods being judged; and knowing the science after years of classes and study about wheat/flour, and other grains, and baking characteristics. You have to be equally as informed as to what is right as to what went wrong when you judge. It's not just about what "looks" good. These are also based on industry standards from restaurants to commercial bakeries. You probably won't see a pizza place using all-purpose flour, it's the wrong standard for pizza dough - BUT - you can make pizza dough with all-purpose flour - it's just not the optimum flour choice. Knowing the science really IS the difference between good and best when using judging standards. Personal preference aside.

-Grainlady

FWIW, I always use unbleached organic flours; the bleached kinds seem to make my skin break out.

Always Gold Medal unbleached AP flour for general baking unless something specifically requires cake flour. Why? Because it's what my mother and grandmother used and it's incredibly consistent. I know exactly what it's going to do. I use KA bread flour and whole wheat flour for breads. I like Bob's Red Mill cornmeal when I can get it.

I also avoid bleached flour - it seems like an unnecessary process, and I am okay with the results I've been getting so far. I might like a more tender pie crust, but I've gotten no complaints from that. I've been making pie crust with 50% whole wheat pastry flour because I like the flavor better, but it is not as tender as the white.

I've bought Bob's Red Mill cornmeal and found it to be a bit too coarse - at least for making hush puppies. I bought medium grind because that's what I found, and I've been looking for a finer grind.