From bread to biscuits, cookies to cakes, baking is the art of turning flour into (delicious) food. Flour — finely milled wheat or other grains — lends structure to baked goods, but different baked goods demand different structural supports. Choose the right flour for the right task and you’re a long way toward baking success. Choose the wrong flour and you’re courting trouble.
Protein content is the primary differentiator in flours. High-protein wheat varieties (10 to 14 percent protein) are classed as “hard wheat.” Low-protein wheats (5 to 10 percent) are known as “soft wheat.” Simply put: More protein equals more gluten equals more strength. And more strength translates into more volume and a chewier texture. Doughs made from high-protein flours are both more elastic (stretch further) and more extensible (hold their shape better) — desirable qualities in bread and many other yeasted products where a firm structure is paramount, but undesirable in pastries and cakes, where the goal is flakiness or tenderness.
Unless labeled “whole-wheat,” all flour is white flour: that is, milled from the starchy, innermost part of the wheat kernel, known as the endosperm.
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