From: bondc@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Clay M. Bond)
Subject: Re: Another bread flour question
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 13:00:26 GMT

In article <1992Dec31.054822.7936@siemens.com> aad@siemens.com (Anthony Datri) writes:

>I didn't say that I disagreed with it.

You implied it, which is the same as openly disagreeing with it,
and it makes no difference whether you *intended* to or not; what
you write is what you write, not what you *meant* to say.

I don't own a single DAK appliance.  I was, however, a professional
patissier for many years, and know flours intimately.  What you
call "propoganda" is fact, and fact that has been known for
hundreds of years by those who bake.  Here is the basic scoop
(sorry, I couldn't stop myself) on flours:

There are five basic types of white flour: bread flour, all-purpose
flour, cake flour, pastry flour and unbleached flour.  These types
exist because they produce very different results owing to gluten
content, and unless you live in a real backwater, you will find
them on your supermarket shelves--and here's the great part--even
if they are not labeled as above.  Yes, Virginia, you can tell.

Gluten is the protein in flour.  Look on the nutritional panel
(you should do this even if they are labeled to judge which of
the various brands you should buy).  Find "protein".  Bread flour
should be at least 13%, unbleached 11 or 12%, all-purpose 9%,
pastry 8%, and cake 7% *at most*.  (Pastry flour is the only one
of these that is hard to find these days, and is used for
yeast-raised pastries, not pie dough, but use the percentages
given above to see what the gluten content of the available cake
flours is--or when making pastry, use half all-purpose and half
cake flour).  As someone else pointed out, gluten provides the
network which traps the gas from yeast fermentation: a flour high
in gluten is appropriate for breads, but will produce a tough
chewy cake; a flour low in gluten will produce a dense bread
because it cannot trap the gas, but a feathery light cake crumb.

All-purpose flour is a blend of flours from hard and soft wheats,
a compromise flour, if you will.  Certainly, if for some reason
you feel you can only keep one type of flour in your cabinet,
then all-purpose is the only one that will do.  It will produce
acceptable, though not magnificent, breads and cakes.  Unbleached
flour is flour that has been bleached by an aging process, and
because soft flours would go rancid if used, from a blend of hard
flours, hence the higher gluten content.  It is not as high in
gluten as bread flour, and is the best choice when making French
breads, as its gluten content is the closest to that of French
bread flours.  Pastry flour has a higher gluten content than cake
flour, but not so high as bread flour, so it will produce a light
but not highly-raised pastry--and when making pastries which are
to be filled before rising, use all-purpose, as the lower gluten
pastry flour often will not rise beneath the weight of the
filling and you'll end up with a doughy mass on the bottom.

Enough.  I keep bread, unbleached, all-purpose and a 9% "cake"
flour on hand in my kitchen at all times (the "cake" flour,
really pastry flour, produces a fine, light crumb in cakes) but I
do a great deal of baking.  If you do not, buy it as you need it.

-- 
"I like women too much to want to be a straight man."
                                                     -- John Fisher
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking