Conference turris::cooks

    According to Julia Child in "The Way to Cook," in the South (generally
    not Shrewsbury, hmmm) All-Purpose Flour has a lower gluten content
    than it does in the north so it can be used for biscuits and Bread
    flour, in the South, has a blend which results in 1/3 more gluten.
    My impression was that Bread flour in the South was the same as
    All-purpose Flour in the North.
    
    She did not say anything special about Bread Flour in the North. I can
    only guess that it isn't much different from All-Purpose Flour, it might
    have a little more gluten.  I looked for bread flour in the super
    markets around here and haven't seen any.
    
    ed

I was under the impression that bread flour is high in gluten, and cake flour
is low in gluten.  All purpose flour is somewhere in the middle.  Bread flour
is also harder; cake flour ia softer; all purpose is more in the middle.

Different regions draw the dividing lines in different places.

Bread flour is also good for making pasta.

    
    
    Speaking of flour!   I've heard that the chemicals they
    use to 'bleach' flour are bad for us.   While shopping last
    week, I noticed 'unbleached' flour.   When cooking, is there
    any difference between bleached and unbleached?  
    
    Thanks,
    Joanne

  I'm sure the chemicals used to bleach flour are bad for you, but I get
  around that very easily: I never cook with those chemicals :-). 

  Seriously, as far as I know the main complaint about bleached flour is
  that some nutrients are removed or destroyed by the bleaching process,
  and THAT'S why it's not as good for you as unbleached flour. I've
  never heard that trace amounts of whatever chemicals might be used in
  the bleaching process were the problem, but, on the other hand, you're
  probably right to ask the question.

  In any case, I've never noticed any major differences between bleached
  and unbleached in baking, so I use unbleached. There doesn't seem to
  be much difference in price, either. Anyone else have more detailed
  info?

    PRICE is an interesting issue.... Though the price of bleached via
    unbleached is not so far apart... have you noticed that the UNbleached
    flour is more than the bleached.
    
    Now, I know that there is more processing involved in bleaching
    flour then the processing of unbleached flour. If this is so, how
    can they justify charging more for the unbleached flour. Now I know
    that it has to do with DEMAND on the products... But I am interested
    in hearing from others on this..
    
    Also, with the growing concern for health, you would think that
    the bleached flour would be less popular these days. Why would they
    even process the flour into "bleached" when the unbleached will
    yield the same results in the final product (though slightly darker
    in color).
    
    Your comments would be interesting.!
    
    Bob G.
    

    Where do you find "cake" flour, "bread" flour?  I usually shop at
    Purity or Market Basket or Shaws.  I know Purity does not carry Rye
    flour but the others do.  I thought you had to go to specialty
    places to find the different labels (cake, bread) and then only in
    special circumstances would it really make a difference.
    
    My thoughts as to why unbleached is more expensive than bleached
    are (please excuse me, this is tongue in cheek):
    "Health Nuts will pay more for healthful food items, so sock it to
    'em."
    
    "Unbleached has a lower demand and volume so handling costs more."
    
    <soapbox follows>
    Really, I have no respect for the grocery business.  I mean, after you
    see dill-weed at 7 grams for $2.05 and realize that's $132.95 a pound.
    Or when you see how totally messed up the unit pricing is, you realize
    they don't give a hoot about the consumer.
    
    ed

  I've seen most flours in most supermarkets, though I don't recall if
  Purity has a particularly small selection. Cake flour is most often
  available in only one brand name: Swan's Down (or something like
  that), and it comes in a red and white box (two pounds, I think), not
  the usual five-pound bag. You may have been overlooking it.

PS Cake flour does make a big difference. As far as I can tell, it's much lower
in gluten than other flours. It won't knead very well, but it makes nice, light
cakes.

    
    Not only is it marketed in a small box, in order to confuse ed, but it 
    is not all flour. Cake flour has a fairly high percentage of corn
    starch, which keeps those beaten egg whites from drooping.
    Mike

    I came up with another idea about why bleached flour costs less than
    unbleached.  It is just a guess but I remembered what was done in a
    packing plant that I worked in for an eternity a few years ago.
    
    It is possible that the flours used to make bleached flour consists
    of a blend of cheaper grades of flour than that used for unbleached.
    For example unbleached flours might consist of more "natuarally white"
    flours.
    
    ed

    OK, I've got another flour I can't find in any stores, namely
    gluten flour. I need it to make bagels and just about every recipe
    calls for it. Can something else be used and/or is this just a name
    for something else that I CAN find?
    
    Keith
    

    I don't know where you're located, but I've found bags of gluten in the
    local health food store, the Living Earth in Worcester.
    
    Martha

    I'm just about 2600 miles from Worcester down here in Arizona. But
    we do have plenty of health food stores here so I'll give them a
    try. Does anyone know what the difference is from all purpose flour?
    I thought of asking the bagel shop I frequent where they buy it but
    that seemed kinda sleazy.
    
    Keith_who's_wishing_he_was_back_in_New_England
    

    I think gluten flour is just another name for bread flour; in Ohio,
    bread flour is usually on the shelf with all the other variations of
    flour - I think Pillsbury makes it.  I'm pretty sure you could use
    regular flour instead.  I think the added gluten in bread flour just
    increases your chances of getting a good loaf, but if you're using good
    yeast and kneading as long as you're supposed to, you should be okay. A
    similar situation is pastry flour; Swan's Down would give you a better
    product, but all-purpose flour will do OK.
    
    I haven't tried pricing or using just gluten added to regular flour, so
    I don't know about that!
    
    Terry

    I bought an 80lb bag of bread flour at a commercial baking/pizza supply
    place.  I found out that the health food store was simply buying these
    larger bags, dividing them up, and then charging an order of magnitude
    more for them.  Of course you then have the problem of keeping 80lbs of
    flour away from your insect friends.  This shouldn't be nearly as much
    of a problem down where you live because its so dry (it IS in New
    England).  The selection was also much better at the commercial supply: 
    they had at least 4-5 different kinds of bread flour.  Not to mention
    those five gallon pails of buttercream frosting...

    Gluten and bread flour are different.  Bread flour is a flour with
    a higher than usual gluten content.  It may also be made from a
    slightly different sort of wheat?  Gluten is a "flour" that is
    mainly gluten.  It is very high in protein and is often used as
    either an addition to regular flours or low-gluten flours OR
    as a meat substitute.  Preparing gluten as a meat substitute is
    a sticky proposition - you have to take the gluten, add water,
    and then knead under running water to rinse off all the starch
    you can.  Then you take this sticky mass, having the consistency
    of silly putty, and try to cut it into equal sized portions, try
    to cook it so it's edible, try to eat it....  It's also sold in
    cans in health food stores and oriental stores, sometimes called
    "mock abalone".  I would rather eat beans or tofu.  It is, however,
    great in pizza crusts and bagels.  About 1 tablespoonful for every
    2 cups or so of flour, adjust as you experiment.
    
    --Louise

    re .15,.16,.17 Thanks for your replies, they've been a big help. I'm
                   not sure I want to know about 5lb buckets of buttercream
                   frosting but just in case I ever need one...8^) I don't
                   think I'd mind the 80lb bag, especially if the bagels
                   come out good but just finding the stuff will do for a
                   start. Time to get out the yellow pages and look under
                   bakery supplies. As far as bugs are concerned, you're
                   correct as far as mosquitoes, blackflies, gnats and
                   other such New England delicacies are concerned, but 
                   we do have to spray monthly in the warm weather for
                   crickets and other things that may infest flour. Perhaps
                   fresh cricket bagels will be the new taste sensation;
                   then again.
    
    Keith
    

    One sidenote about gluten vs. bread flour:
    
    Often when I can't find an exact ingredient, I check out the conversion
    /substitute tables in one of my cookbooks. If it works with the
    substitute, I don't need to go searching!
    

    Just a side note regarding bugs and things in the flour.  I keep
    all my flours and corn meal in the freezer. It doesn't really freeze,
    so you can just take it out in the quantities you need when it's
    time to prepare your recipe.

    I don't mean to nit-pick, but the health food store and I were buying
    the SAME flour.  Most cookbooks as well my instructor at the night
    course in "International Baking" (taught by the local culinary school)
    consider them to be the same thing.  The gluten content is governed by
    the ratio of soft wheat (low in Gluten = pastry flour) to hard wheat.
    Bread flour is high in gluten which allows bakers to develop
    free-standing loafs easily.  Bakers in the in the States tend to always
    used bread/high gluten flour for their bread.  In Europe they don't
    have access to hard wheat so they develop the gluten in other ways.

    concerning 'All purpose' vs. bread flour, as I quoted Julia Child in .1
    All purpose is blended differently in defferent parts of the US,
    changing the gluten content (higher in the north, lower in the south).
    
    ed

  Does anyone know where I can get hard-wheat flour in the Nashua area?
James Beard gives the impression that it's not readily available in the
standard supermarket.

--Sharon

    Would Semolina work?  If so, it's at East-West Grocery.
    
    			-JP

We were  making  some cookies tonight, and the recipe called for self-rising
flour.   Like  most  people,  we  didn't  happen  to have any on hand, so we
started  searching  through  all  of our cookbooks for substitutions.  I was
sure  it  was  a commonly listed substitution, but the Joy of Cooking was no
help,  nor were any of our other books.  I vaguely recalled seeing something
in  this  notesfile,  so I searched for the strings "substit" and "flour" in
titles  (there  was  no SUBSTITUTIONS keyword till I just added it...) but I
couldn't find anything.

I assume it's a mixture of flour and baking powder or something similar, but
I don't know the ratios.

- Brad

  You got it exactly right. You can make your own self-rising flour by
  adding 1/2 to 1 level tsp of baking powder to each cup of general-
  purpose flour. If your recipe calls for less than two cups of flour,
  then use the high end of the range (1 tsp per cup). If more, then cut
  down on the baking powder. The exact amount of baking powder to use is
  hard to say, because it depends on the age (strength) of your baking
  powder and the moisture content of your flour. Older baking powder or
  higher moisture need more baking powder.

  In cookies, getting it exactly right isn't as critical as it is for a
  cake, but you still run the risk of a failure if you can't tell by the
  "feel" and appearance of the batter whether it's got the right amount
  of leavening. That's why they sell self-rising flour (and stuff like
  Bisquick, which also has shortening). If it's an "important"
  performance (i.e., you need to impress someone), then don't take a
  chance -- get some self-rising flour. Otherwise, definitely do your
  own. It's the only way to learn.

    Speaking of Baking Powder.....how about making your own.  I've been
    using this recipe for several years (from a old Shaker Cook Book).
    
                          SHAKER BAKING POWDER
    
                1 CUP BAKING SODA
                1 CUP CREAM OF TARTAR
    		1 CUP ARROWROOT POWDER
    
    Sift ingredients together 5 or 6 times and store in an airtight
    container (a large peanut butter jar works well).  Cream of tartar and
    arrowroot powder is best purchased from a health food store by the half
    pound.  Since I make my own "bisquit mix", the three cup amount doesn't
    last very long.  
    		

    	Bread flour has more gluten.  If you don't find something
    labelled "bread flour" you should be able to rely on any
    unbleached flour because that is made of the harder wheat
    grains that have more gluten.
    
        One way to compare, if the bag doesn't say is to look at the
    nutrient info.  Higher gluten means higher protein levels per serving.
    
        The only place where I would worry is in the south where
    "all-purpose flour" is a different combination of grains and has
    less gluten because it is designed to make biscuits more than bread.
    
    King Arthur's unbleached makes great bread.  Whole wheat (don't know
    which you meant) is good but doesn't help bread rise the way the
    white flours do.
    
    ed

If you want a good bread flour in New Englad, try King Arthur Brand.
Used to make a lot of breads and always had good luck with it.  You
can find it in most supermarkets.  It's unbleached, and if you read the
lable, they claim to have a higher percentage of 'hard' wheat than the
all purpose stuff.  Another nice thing is that the cost isn't too high!

		Liz

I know this is VERY late but I just found this article from the Los Angeles
Times (I believe the article was printed in 1990.)

Ultimate Bread Flour

Heartland Mill
Route 1, Box 2
Marienthal, Kansas  67863
(316) 379-4472

Brochure Available
Billed Open Account

Bread has become such an important part of the modern meal that many
restaurants have taken to baking their own.  Many home cooks have done the
same.  With all this sudden baking of bread, flour has assumed a new
importance.

It takes two kinds of flour to make great bread.  Flours such as rye, whole
wheat and cornmeal add interesting taste and texture to a loaf, but they
contain very little gluten.  It is gluten that gives bread its strength
and elasticity, and high-gluten flours were once available only to 
commercial bakers.

But things have changed.  Heartland Mill, a Mennonite co-op in Kansas, freshly
mills and ships a fine selection of grains grown without chemical fertilizers,
herbicides or pesticides.  (Even its packaging is environmentally friendly-
the pretty cotton bags resemble '40s feed sacks and are very good at keeping
flour fresh and dry.)

One of their newest products is a high-performance flour named "golden buff."
They make it by running hard red winter wheat through a stone grinder.  This
does not eliminate the bran, but merely sifts it off, leaving the germ behind
and making the flour healthier.  Priced at $1.16 a pound, this is the
ultimate flour for discerning bread bakers:  It works like white flour, yet
contains both high protein and high gluten.

The mill's all-purpose D & H flour is another high-performing flour suitable
for general baking needs, as well as bread baking when gluten strength is
important.  A five-pound sack sells for $1.92.

Heartland Mill's other products are also priced reasonably:  A two-pound
bag of cornmeal costs $1.16; two pounds of oat bran will run $2.81.  But
remember, it takes a lot of flour to bake a loaf of bread, and shipping
charges could double the cost of the order.

L

    I just picked up "whole wheat bread flour" at Bread & Circus.  Has
    anyone tried it?  I'm assuming I can just substitute it for the bread
    flour in the recipes???????
    
    diane