Baking with Different Types of Flour
With so many types of flour to choose from–spelt flour, soy flour, quinoa flour, rice flour, organic bread flour and even gluten-free flour–your head may begin to spin. If you want your recipe to be a success, you’ll need to understand what each type does and whether it's right for your recipe's need.
All-purpose flour is one of the most accessible and commonly used types of flour. You can buy bleached (i.e. white flour chemically bleached to reduce spoilage) or unbleached all-purpose flour. Bleached flour is good for pie crusts, cookies and pancakes, and unbleached flour is great for strudel, cream puffs and éclairs.
Whole-wheat flour is high in fiber and overall nutritional content, but it does not have the highest gluten level, meaning it is sometimes mixed with all-purpose or bread flour in recipes.
Bread flour is high in gluten and milled from hard wheat, which means it has a lot of protein, and is best for yeast products.
Pastry flour is used in more fragile cakes and other pastry products like pie crusts. Cake flour has a low gluten level and is usually used for angel food cakes and cookies. This flour is used when the desired effect is a texture that is tender or delicate.
Semolina is used to make some of the best high-quality pasta or white pasta. It’s not bleached and is considered high protein flour.
Durum flour has the highest protein content of any flour and has the least starch. This flour is great for stretching, expanding and making pasta.
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With so many types of flour to choose from, such as spelt flour, soy flour, quinoa flour, rice flour, organic bread flour and even gluten-free flour, your head may begin to spin. If you want your recipe to be a success, you'll need to understand what each type does and whether it's right for your recipe's need.
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