Wizard Recipes

Flour is the powdery substance made from grinding grains. Flour has been used by nearly every culture in the world for making foods-usually breads-that are staples in the diet.

Wheat is usually used, but flour can be ground from almost any grain and sometimes is ground from potatoes, peanuts, chickpeas, lentils, and edible roots of plants.

Flour was traditionally ground by hand or by stone, but today’s flour undergoes an extensive process in which grain seeds are pulverized by steel rollers. More refined flour has the bran and the germ-and thus, the nutrition-removed from the seed.

Flour is mostly composed of the seed’s starchy endosperm. However, the germ and bran are returned to the flour at the end of the milling process in whole-grain flours. For other types of flour, nutrients are returned at the end of the process, although not all of them are returned. Check the label to see whether the flour has been enriched.

The characteristics of flour depend on the type of material used to make it. Because most flour is used to make bread and other baked goods, most flour is ground from wheat. The high gluten content of wheat works well in leavened bread, leading to a light and airy finished product.

Most wheat flour contains a combination of flour from hard and soft wheat. Hard wheats contain more protein and gluten, and soft wheat flours make for a more delicate texture.

Types of flour include the following:

All-purpose flour-This is what is typically on the shelf at the supermarket. A blend of hard and soft wheat flour, all-purpose flour has a wide range of uses and works well in breads or pastries.

Look at the label to see whether the flour has been bleached. Manufacturers often bleach it to whiten it. One result is that the flour may have more gluten. Unbleached flours, however, may have more flavor.

Bread flour-A specialty flour used for bread making, this flour has a higher gluten content.

Cake flour-Made exclusively of soft wheat, this very refined flour gives cakes a light, soft texture. Because it is so refined, it has a low gluten content and cannot be used to make raised breads. Pastry flour is a less refined version of cake flour.

Durum flour-Made from hard wheat, durum flour is often used in pasta because it is high in gluten.

Gluten flour-This flour undergoes a manufacturing process so that its gluten has about twice the strength of regular flour. It is useful for adding to recipes to balance flours that are low in gluten.

Self-rising flour-This flour contains salt and a leavening agent, such as baking soda. It should not be used in yeast breads. In addition, leavening agents in this flour can lose strength with age.

Whole-wheat or whole-grain flour- This is flour that has the wheat germ and bran (or the bran and germ from the grain being used) that were removed during milling added back before it is packaged for consumers. Sometimes this is called graham flour. This type of flour is higher in nutrients.

Preparation Tips

Proper storage of flour is essential because flour can spoil-sometimes quickly under the right conditions. The result is an objectionable odor and inferior baked products.

How to store flour depends on the type being used. It is best to store whole-grain flours in airtight containers in the freezer. Whole-grain flours will stay fresh for up to a year this way. Whole-grain flours include the germ of the grain, which contains polyunsaturated fat. This fat is susceptible to oxidation and rancidity the longer it is exposed to air.

Refined flours have only the starchy endosperm of the grain. Such flours can be stored at room temperature up to a year or in the freezer for up to 2 years. Airtight containers will keep refined flours tasting fresh.

Because flour can spoil, it may be wise to purchase flours in small quantities so you use them up more quickly.

Serving Suggestions

Flour is the basis for most baked goods. Although wheat flour is typically used, other types of flour can be used to boost flavor and nutrition. Flour also typically is used as a thickening agent in soups, stews, and creams.

Bread is such a fundamental food that the word “bread” itself is often equivalent to “food” or “money” in many parts of the world. Although it is a simple food, bread requires the conversion of grain into flour, leavening ingredients, and a means of baking.

Bread also plays a role in many customary rituals, such as the breaking and blessing of bread in religious rites. Although there are hundreds of different types of bread, the main types are leavened (meaning raised) and unleavened breads.

There are also quick breads, in which baking powder or baking soda is used as a leavening agent.

The main ingredients in most breads are the following:

Flour-The powdery material from ground grain, flour is the main ingredient in bread. Because of its high gluten content, wheat flour lends itself best to bread making. The gluten, when mixed with water, gives the bread dough elasticity.

This allows the dough to expand when the yeast ferments, yet it is strong enough to contain it. The result is light and airy bread. Any grain can be used to make bread. In countries where wheat is less readily available, grains that are used include millet, barley, rye, and oats.

Liquid-Water is the most common liquid in bread making, but beer, milk, and fruit juice also can be used. Liquid is needed in raised bread to allow the gluten in flour to do its work. The type of liquid used can result in the bread having different properties. Water, for example, will result in a thick crust.

Yeast-Yeast is a one-celled organism that is used to leaven bread. Unleavened breads and quick breads do not contain yeast. When yeast ferments the substances naturally present in flour, it produces a gas called carbon dioxide.

Bread rises as the gluten in the dough traps this gas. Yeast is also responsible for bread’s delicious aroma and gives it its flavor.

Salt-Bread can be made without this staple, but salt does several things when it is added to dough. It adds flavor, helps strengthen the gluten, and helps regulate yeast production.

Optional ingredients-Two ingredients that do not have to be added to bread but often are include sugar and fat. Sugar provides a ready food source for the multiplying yeast, adds flavor to bread, and helps it stay moist.

Fat is often used in commercial bread making. It adds flavor and tenderness. In addition, it gives the dough more elastic qualities, allowing it to expand more.

The most common type of bread eaten in the United States is made from refined white flour. Although enriched during processing and baking, not all of the nutrients lost when the flour is refined are returned to it.

A more nutritious choice is whole-wheat bread. Whole-wheat bread is made from flour ground from whole-wheat grains-meaning the bran and the germ also are used. Make sure the label indicates that only whole-wheat flour was used.

Otherwise, whole wheat or cracked wheat may have been added to white flour.

Flour contains five basic organic building blocks: proteins, starch, sugar, oil and enzymes. Sugar and starch are the yeast’s basic foods. Oil is in the wheat germ providing energy for the sprouting wheat. The wheat germ remains in whole wheat flour but the milling process removes it to make white flour which is free of oil. Enzymes are very minor constituents of flour.

There are many proteins in flour that are its main ingredients. Only two are important to develop the bread structure-gliadin and glutenin. These two proteins become gluten when you add water, but that is not enough for developing bread dough.

In order to form a proper structural framework that becomes bread, gluten must be developed by kneading. Kneading lengthens the gluten molecules so they can produce a firm, continuous structure. Gluten then becomes a rubbery, elastic chemical that forms a network in the dough.

Bakers know that the rougher they are with the dough, the faster and better the gluten develops. What kneading does is unfold and align the randomly oriented and twisted gluten molecules. Continued kneading lines the molecules up into parallel sheets that trap the carbon dioxide, and the air holes you see in your baked bread were all these trapped bubbles. When these sheets develop to the maximum extent, the dough changes its appearance from a gooey, sticky mass to a smooth, elastic, somewhat stiff ball that holds its shape. Fully developed dough remembers its former shape.

When you gently dent it with a finger, it slowly springs back like a balloon. (Some bakers say that a developed dough should feel like your earlobes.) The flour you use to make bread must have high enough protein content to develop gluten sheets in the dough. Flours range from soft to hard, terms that describe the starch content.

The more the starch, the less the protein. Soft flours are high in starch, low in protein, hard flours the opposite. For bread you want the high-protein hard flours. For general baking purposes, flour mills blend various types of flours to produce a single flour suitable for most household cooking and bakingpurposes. This compromise product is our all-purpose flour.

You can use it for bread baking but you don’t get the best, highest-rising breads with it. Commercial bakers are careful to use the optimum flour for every type of baking, but home bakers have less choice available. Bread flour is now on most grocery store shelves, but should you not have it in your community, you have a couple of options.

Ask at the local bakery if they will order an extra 50-pound bag of hard-wheat bread flour the next time they re-order their supply. If the baker is honest, the price is very reasonable, and 50 pounds (23 kg) of flour produces 45 to 50 loaves of bread.     Baking two loaves at a time, that is not an unreasonable amount to store. Flour has a long shelflife if you keep it well covered in bins in a fairly cool, dry place, out of reach of tiny bugs and insects.

Your other choice is to buy all-purpose flour and add gluten flour to up the protein content. Gluten flour is wheat flour from which they remove most of the starch, leaving behind a concentration of gluten proteins. You can often find it in bulk at health and natural food stores.

It is costly but you need very little to make a good bread flour blend (5 percent gluten and 95 percent allpurpose flour). A loaf that calls for 3 cups of flour needs only 3 tablespoons of gluten flour. One of the baking tests I conducted for this post was baking three identical breads with three different flours: hard-wheat bread flour, all-purpose flour and all-purpose flour with 5 percentgluten flour. All three breads tasted the same, but the difference in the loaves was clearly visible.

The loaf I made with bread flour rose the most and held its shape the best when baking freeform on a baking sheet. The loaf I made with all-purpose flour plus gluten flour held its shape less well. It flattened a little and had a somewhat heavier texture. The all-purpose flour loaf flattened clearly during the last rising and baking, and the air holes were much finer than in the other two loaves.

Modern flours need no sifting before mixing them into bread dough. You can measure flour directly from the bin to the mixing bowl or on your work surface. It is always surprising to see in a new cookbook that the author still starts bread baking with the familiar, “sift dry ingredients into a bowl.”

Sifting is still a good idea if you have several dry ingredients that need mixing, as in quick breads. For yeast breads with few ingredients, forget about sifting.

Another misconception is exact measurements. A reasonable accuracy is fine, but you don’t need to draw a knife over the cup of flour. Yeast, salt and flavorings need to be exact in measurement. You don’t need to be quite so careful with the flour and water.

From this point of view, the refinement of whole food means not only an invention of new ways to make products more resistant and more portable, but also to focus their energy and in a way to accelerate them. The major leap in terms of acceleration was made around 1870, when in Europe were introduced the rolls (iron, steel or porcelain) used for grinding grain. Perhaps more than any other technology, this, which in 1880 replaced the millstones throughout Europe and America, marked the beginning of our food industrialization -reducing it to its chemical essence and accelerating its uptake. Refined flour is the first product of fast food.

Before the millstone revolution, wheat was grounded between two stone wheels and white flour could not be a perfect white because the millstones were removing the bran from the wheat grain (and therefore most of the fiber), but could not remove the germ or embryo that contains essential oils rich in nutrients. The stone mills were only crushing and releasing germ oil. The effect was the gray-yellow shade of the obtained flour (the yellow color is given by carotene) also the shelf-life was shorter because, in contact with air, oil, and rust quickly, that means it grows rancid. People saw and smelled these things and were not satisfied. But what their senses were not perceived was that in the seeds were the most valuable flour nutrients, including most of the proteins, folic acid and other B vitamins, carotenes and other antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids which quickly grown rancid.

The insert of rollers which could remove the germ by grinding only the endosperm (the starch and protein package from the seeds) has resolved the issue of conservation and color. Now, almost everyone could afford to buy immaculate white flour, which could now be preserved for several months. There was no need for each city to have its own mill, because from that point flour could be transported for long distances. (In addition, it can be ground throughout the year by large companies in big cities: heavy stone mills based on hydraulic power depended on watercourses; the new shafts could be maneuvered whenever and wherever steam engines) And so, one of the basis food product from the Western diets has escaped the space and time limitations, it was sold by appearance and not on the criterion of nutritional value. From this perspective, white flour was one of the first modern industrial food products.

The problem was that beautiful white powder was null or almost null in terms of nutrition. The same was now in the case of corn flour and white rice, whose refining (i.e. removal of the most nutritious parts) was introduced around the same period. In all regions where there were introduced on a large scale, the new refining technologies appeared in a short time, devastating epidemics of beriberi and pellagra. Both diseases are caused by vitamin B deficiencies which were contained in seed. But probably because ot the sudden disappearance of other micro-nutrients from bread, and also the omega-3 fatty acids, affect health, especially that of poor townspeople in Europe, for whom bread was a fundamental food product.