Chef Lamar: Notes on Flour

By Lamar Thomas at March 15, 2010 | 3:21 pm | Print

Use the right flour for the right dish. The type of flour used is vital to getting the recipe correct, don’t change flours called for in a recipe if you want to make that particular dish. There are consequences and you can ruin a dessert or bread by changing named flours. In other words don’t use bread flour when the recipe says cake flour. Why? Hard or soft wheat, high or low gluten, fine, coarse or superfine are words to pay strict attention to as each imparts a different flavor and texture, and most of all, TASTE. Use the right flour for the right job, the results are your reward. This flour section is a good section to cut and save for your future baking references.

All Purpose Flour: Blend of hard and soft wheat; it may be bleached or unbleached. It is “plain flour”. This is the most common flour in America. If you want a high protein flour then use “unbleached”. Bleached flour is chemically bleached, but do not despair as it has uses. It is best for pie crusts, pancakes, biscuits and cookies. Unbleached flour is good for yeast breads, pastries, popovers and strudel type dishes, and for the classic British Prime rib you use this for making Yorkshire pudding.

It will keep for 8 months or so if kept wrapped in the pantry or refrigerator. In the freezer it will keep a year. Professionals recommend that you do not keep flour for more than 8 months.

HINT: keep a bay leaf in your flours as bay leaves are natural insect repellents.

Bread Flour: Wheat is hard, high protein white flour. It has more gluten and protein and is unbleached. This gives it more density and more ascorbic acid which makes it great for yeast breads, sourdough and foccaccia.

It will keep for six months. Buy all flours in small amounts. Always keep all flours tightly wrapped and stored either in pantry, refrigerator or freezer.

Cake Flour: Fine, soft wheat, high starch. It is not a substitute for high gluten flour. Note that it is very fine, almost powder with the lowest protein content of all the wheat flours. This is great for pastries and dessert because it combines well with sugars that help it rise and bind in such a way that it is less liable to fall. Cake flour is also good for greater volume like in cupcakes or muffins and some kinds of cookies. Ever have a cake or Italian yeast bread fall? Check your flour. If you don’t have cake flour, well, then do this: use bleached all purpose flour and subtract 2 tablespoons flour for each cup by volume, or 1 ounce per 8 ounce by weight.

Because cake flour is chlorinated and kind of acidic a cake will set faster. This acidity helps the butter fats and sugar distribute evenly throughout the batter. Keep in mind that the more sugar the more rise and the better hold with cake flour. Don’t use cake flour for dusting meats to sauté or as an ingredient to pizza dough.

If you must store your flour for more than a few months freeze for two days and then keep as usual. Never ever, do not, no, never mix old with new flour.

Pastry Flour: Soft wheat, the protein/gluten content is between all purpose and cake flour. Great for biscuits, pie crusts, quick breads and cookies. This is good for crumbly style crusts or for lattice on top of pies. It’s more difficult to find in regular grocery stores, but since so many people are demanding more and more ingredients that are either professionally based or old-timey the availability is getting better than it was in the 20th century.

Throw away any flour that has an off odor, smells bad or has weevils. Don’t even try to salvage. Flour is cheap, your taste buds are not.

Whole Wheat: High fiber, high nutrient, whole kernel wheat. Draw back is that it has a very low gluten level. This is good for some dishes and diets. When baking yeast breads with whole wheat flour you have to add all purpose, bread or high gluten to help it rise. Most of time we use whole wheat flour as an ingredient not as the main attraction although whole wheat breads are delicious, they have to be helped along the way so that it is not too dense. If you use too much whole wheat (or even rye flour) in a bread it will be dense as wet red clay.

Whole wheat flour does not store well so buy small quantities and use within 3 or 4 months. You can store in the freezer, but really, just throw it away and use fresh. Rancid flour is awful and whole wheat flour goes rancid in 6 months on the shelf.

Self-Rising Flour: Oh yes, the charm of biscuits in 20 minutes is hard to beat and this is the flour for that home style fast food treat. I’ve made donuts with self rising flour as well. Sometimes it’s OK to cheat a bit and this is your easy out on measuring or if you are out of baking powder. To make your own “phosphated flour”: dry measure 1 cup all purpose flour, 1 1⁄2 teaspoon baking powder and 1⁄2 teaspoon salt, and then mix.

Do not use self-rising flour with yeast or yeast breads as the volume will rise and collapse, in other words, it will not work. Too much of a good thing is simply too much. Self-rising is really considered cheating by some but on the other hand, it does come in handy. I’ve made biscuits on the Big Green Egg grill with this flour when I needed some bread in a pinch after smoking ribs.

Semolina Flour: Pasta. It is made from hard wheat called Durum. Durum winter wheat has the highest gluten content of all flours. Mix this with all purpose for making pasta or Italian desserts. It is good for dusting your pastas after they have dried as well.

Durum Flour: This is North Dakota flour, very finely ground. Although semolina is made from Durum flour it is not necessarily interchangeable in recipes so follow directions on how to use this in the recipes you are using. I don’t use this very much, but it is good to have in the freezer for that extra firmness you may need in a recipe.

Hi-Gluten Flour: I use this a lot for making Italian breads and grill breads. It is made from spring wheat, has high protein content. It is great for nonwheat bread mixes and for mixes that require a strong dough. The thing that makes gluten flour important is that it bonds and rises well with biga/starter dough, with sweet potato and tapioca starches for dim sum style doughs, and as a general additive when you need a little extra “punch” to help your triple rise breads rise and form a good crust.

Do not store any flour near onions or other dry goods that have a strong odor. Flour absorbs anything that comes near it. Same thing for storing any baked goods in your refrigerator in that they will absorb any odor that is near by. Did I say that you can store it in the freezer? You may and you can in a plastic bag.

Organic Flour: Is regular all purpose flour that is raised by organic standards and is in no way genetically modified wheat. This kind of flour is available in health food markets and high end grocery stores.

Now, it is neat to buy bulk, and even more fun to get your dried products from bins, but don’t buy flour this way. Only buy what you can use in a short time and only in sealed containers, tins or bags.

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