Flour - AP, Bread, and Cake
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
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- 6 years ago
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oh oh Used bread flour in upside down cake
Comments (6)I agree, it'll be fine. I use King Arthur All Purpose, which is about the same protein percentage as Gold Medal or Pillsbury bread flour, and it all comes out good. Scrape the pineapple part off and eat the cake. I'm sure your parents are going to love it. Oh, and Elery and I took his grandson, Dylan, to House of Flavors yesterday in Ludington and we were remembering about meeting you and your DH there. Annie...See MoreBread Flour
Comments (4)What are you going to use it in? In general, it's not a good choice because of the high amount of gluten in the flour. I'd certainly avoid using it in anything where you don't want a lot of gluten-development to begin with - cookies, quick breads, pastry, biscuits... Cookies will be harder, dryer, as well as tough - so choose a cookie that is already crispy, not soft. It will be easy to over-develop gluten in quick breads during mixing, and they will be more tough-than-tender and you may end up with tunnels running through your muffins and quick breads. Pancakes will be tough. If you do use it (emergency use), keep mixing to a bare minimum. Adjustments you can make: -Use 1-2 tablespoon LESS per cup. -Additional fat will help if you use it for biscuits or pastry, where the fat is mixed into the flour. The fat coats the gluten in the flour. Where the gluten is coated with fat, the liquid will only allow the gluten to form in short strands. -Use a mixture - 10% low-gluten flour - rye flour or blend oatmeal into a flour in a blender or food processor and use it as 10% of the flour mixture. All-purpose flour is a blend of hard wheat and soft wheat while bread flour is milled from hard wheat. Soft wheat really makes a huge amount of difference in the blend of all-purpose flour to add tenderness to baked goods, while hard wheat gives enough strong flour to raise a loaf of yeast bread. Hence the term "all-purpose" flour. It was developed for all purposes. The problem is that it's NOT optimum for anything. -Grainlady...See MoreYour AP flour-- do you use unbleached or not?
Comments (15)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...See MoreBread flour for Chocolate Chip Cookies?
Comments (3)I will generally make a recipe the first time - as written - out of some kind of respect for the author of the recipe. In this case, I don't see why they used bread flour (milled from hard wheat) and cake flour (milled from soft wheat), when National Brands of All-Purpose Flour (such as Pillsbury and Gold Medal) are already a blend of hard and soft wheat flour, and what you are essentially mixing is all-purpose flour. If you are going to use a National Brand of all-purpose flour, I would use the entire amount of flour called for in the recipe, and not use any cake flour. If you are using King Arthur or Robin Hood all-purpose flour (which are Northern All-Purpose flours) and are closer to bread flour in protein than National Brands, in that case I would use the cake flour. The hydration will be off because the higher-protein (gluten) bread flour will absorb more liquid than either all-purpose or cake flour. As it is, switching flour types, you may need to adjust the amount of flour (add some - like a tablespoon or two), check the stiffness of the dough, and make sure you bake a few test cookies to see if it's "okay". This is a good reason to understand the different types of flour and how they work in a recipe, so when you need to alter the type of flour in a recipe, you'll know how to adjust accordingly....See More- 6 years agolast modified: 6 years ago
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6 years agolast modified: 6 years agobbstx thanked sleevendog (5a NY 6aNYC NL CA)
6 years agoHope you don’t mind me tacking on a flour question. I’ve been making pizza regularly while in quarantine, happy with the results but figure there’s always room for improvement. Remembered this thread:
https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/2494510/best-pizza-dough-ever#n=34
which reminded me of 2 kilos of semolina flour I ordered a while back and never opened. Nov ‘19 date. Think it’s ok? What should I be looking for, rancid taste/smell?
bbstx thanked foodonastump- 6 years ago
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