Flour

What Strengthens Gluten?

Gluten, one of the proteins in wheat, helps dough stay together and gives it its elasticity. Strengthening gluten reduces its ability to stretch, creating a denser dough. Gluten coagulates and forms unbreakable bonds during baking, so that the dough no longer stretches. If your gluten is weak, your dough will be too flat; but if you strengthen it too much, it becomes too dense. The strength of the gluten can determine the bread's ability to rise. A number of substances can strengthen gluten in dough.

All About Flour

How to Convert All-Purpose Flour to Bread Flour

A good bread recipe can inspire you to plan an evening of baking that results in the wonderful smell of fresh bread wafting through your home. Many bread recipes call for bread flour, and you might have only all-purpose flour o...

How to Process Raw Wheat to Flour

While manufacturers commonly bleach and process commercial flour, you can control every step of the milling when you grind your own flour. Home grinding lets you decide on a coarse texture for rustic whole-wheat breads or a fin...

How to Grind Amaranth Flour

...ed that is high in protein. It was domesticated in Central and South America and is used as a food in many developing countries, as both the greens and the seeds are edible. You can purchase amaranth flour or grind amaranth ...

Baking With Almond, Rice & Coconut Flour

Gluten-free flours don't behave the way traditional, wheat-based flours do. When you bake with almond, rice or coconut flour, you must adjust the other elements of the recipe to compensate for the lack of gluten -- otherwise, y...

A Baking Technique for Soft & Chewy Cookies

You take your cookie texture very seriously. While some people prefer a thin, crisp cookie, you like yours soft and chewy. Manipulating basic cookie recipes can help you get the soft texture you desire every time. The baking ti...

How to Fix Flat Cookies With Unbleached Flour

Unbleached flour is often to blame when cookies are very flat or spread out too much during baking. Switching flours will likely give you the thicker, chewier texture that you want. But if you prefer to use unbleached flour, th...

Risks of Unbleached Flour

If you do a lot of baking, you may be wondering if there are risks and rewards for using unbleached flour over bleached flour. It is true that bleached flour contains certain chemicals, such as chlorine, to achieve the bright w...

The Benefits of Pastry Flour

If you've been to your local supermarket's baking aisle recently, you may have seen "pastry flour" nestled in among the familiar cake flour, all-purpose flour, and whole wheat flour. You might have even seen "who...

Healthy Alternatives to Flour as a Thickening Agent

Wheat flour is an effective and economical thickener for sauces and gravies, but health conditions such as allergies or gluten issues may lead some people to choose other products. Most of these alternative thickeners, except f...

Buckwheat Flour Allergies

Buckwheat is finely ground, dark-colored flour. It is commonly used for breads, pancakes and waffles, and as a substitute for individuals allergic to wheat. It contains an extensive amount of proteins, thus an allergic reaction...

Allergic to White Flour

Having an allergy to white, all-purpose flour means having an allergy to wheat. Most wheat allergies develop during the infant or toddler years, but children generally outgrow wheat allergies between the ages of 3 and 5. Allerg...

Why Is Flour Fattening?

flour is the ground product of a cereal grain such as wheat. For example, wheat can be milled into white flour, which comes from just the portion of the grain called the endosperm, or it can be ground as an entire grain. Whole-...

Why Is Sprouted Flour Better for You?

...n the case of wheat and other grains, that means converting their stored energy from starches to sugars for the use of the new sprout. Many bakers feel that sprouted grains, when dried and ground for flour, have health benef...

White Flour Allergies

flour is a major part of the Western diet. In addition to bread and baked products, flour is found in a wide range of sauces, candy and other foods. For some people, however, flour can be a source of illness and discomfort. The...

The Benefits of Soaking Milled Flour

Freshly milled flour offers more taste and health benefits in comparison to flour prepared to withstand sitting on a store shelf for months. Some baking recipes suggest soaking milled flour in an acidic liquid such as a culture...

Substitution for Cake Flour

Recipes for moist, tender cakes often call for cake flour, which is a finely milled type of wheat flour. You have several options if you cannot use cake flour because you ran out or have allergies. Because cake flour has the lo...

Protein Levels in Flour

The protein content in your flour can make or break the baked goods you seek to create. Quick breads and cookies require low-protein flour while regular bread and other baked goods that use yeast for leavening turn out better w...

How to Use Cake & Pastry Flour to Make Flaky Pastry

A flaky pastry is created with the correct blend of flours and fats to make dough that is puffy, yet not bread-like. Flaky pastry dough can be used to make pie crusts, biscuits, croissants and other treats. Most flaky pastry re...

White Flour & Acne

White flour is usually derived from wheat and is found in a multitude of food products, including pizza dough, crackers, breads, breakfast cereals and pasta. White flour is low in fat and protein, but rich in carbohydrates. If ...

How to Make a Layered Cake Turn Out Flat

A multi-layer cake looks nice and stands straight when you take the time to level each layer to make it flat. Complete this step before frosting the cake, so you can stack the layers without problems and create a professional l...

Cornstarch Vs. Flour Thickener

There are several starch-based thickeners available to cooks and bakers, including arrowroot, potato starch, rice starch, tapioca, cornstarch and flour. The latter two are the most widely used in America, and both are versatile...

How to Buy Sprouted Whole Wheat Flour

Sprouted wheat flour is regaining popularity. Once a favorite of 1960s flower children, today this particular type of flour is recognized for its fiber, nutrition and taste. Sprouted wheat kernels are ground, so the flour conta...

What to Add to Flour to Make Cake Flour?

There are many types of flour in the baking world, all of which are used for different purposes and different outcomes. Although all-purpose flour can be used in a variety of products, it contains about 4 percent more protein t...

How to Combine Solid Fat With Flour Using a Pastry Blender

The key to making flaky pastry is distributing the solid fat among the flour to bind the flour molecules firmly without making the dough tough. A pastry blender, which is basically a handle with an arc of blades suspended from ...

Can Whole Wheat Pastry Flour Be Used for Cakes?

...ence between a box-mix cake and a homemade version made with fresh ingredients. As familiarity with baking increases, you can begin to identify the butter quality, percentage of milk fat, and type of flour used in the ingred...

How to Use Self-Rising Flour for Pastries

Self-rising flour is simply a combination of key ingredients you might find in some baking recipes. Manufacturers combine baking powder and salt with traditional all-purpose flour to create this specialized version. Using a sel...

How to Know If Wheat Flour Has Gone Bad

Part of what makes whole wheat flour nutritious also makes it difficult to store. Within this whole grain product is wheat germ, which contains a healthy but perishable oil that time, temperature and exposure to air will eventu...

How to Use White Whole Wheat Flour

Whole wheat flour is made from wheat that hasn't been processed to have the bran removed. Whole grains like whole wheat provide more fiber and vitamins than processed white flour, but regular whole wheat has a sharper taste and...

How to Replace White Flour With Whole Wheat

Replacing white flour with whole wheat flour is a good way to increase the nutritional value and health benefits of your food. While white flour has almost no nutritional value, whole wheat flour adds fiber to your diet and pla...

How to Use Wheat Flour As a Binder

Using wheat Flour as a binder is not at all difficult, even for beginning cooks. Flour contains gluten, which makes it less effective than cornstarch as a thickener, but it is gluten's binding properties that allow bread to ris...

How to Convert to Whole Wheat Flour

The Nutrition Almanac by author and nutritionist Lavon J. Dunne states that it is desirable to convert from white flour to whole wheat flour because whole wheat flour has 60 percent more fiber and vitamins than white flour. Wh...

How to Use Millet Flour

For a twist on baking, you can incorporate different flour types as an alternative to standard all-purpose flour. Millet flour, which has light yellow color similar to cornmeal, is an option that provides a buttery flavor. It's...

What Is the pH Level of Flour?

Though most flour comes from milled wheat grains, flour also refers to ground powder from rye, barley, rice, nuts, pulses or even root vegetables. For that reason, and because of different additives, flour pH levels vary. The p...

Is Unbleached Enriched Wheat Flour Good for You?

Traditional flour for baking and thickening comes from wheat, but the wheat typically has undergone processing that strips it of its bran and germ. That means it's no longer considered a whole grain and offers fewer nutritional...

How to Use Flour as a Thickener

All-purpose flour and pastry flour contain less protein than wheat or whole grain flours, making all-purpose and pastry flour a better choice to use as a thickener. These flours are milled from the inner component, or endosperm...

How to Grind Wheat to Make Flour

...ut grinding the wheat is the easiest part. All you need is an electric or hand grain mill. Once you have that, grinding your grain is as easy as using a mixer or a blender. Grind your own whole wheat flour and enjoy the bene...

How to Thicken Pudding Without Flour or Cornstarch

When you make homemade pudding, a thickener such as flour or cornstarch is usually required by the recipe. If you don't have flour or cornstarch, or prefer a different kind of thickener, arrowroot and tapioca are good substitut...

How to Thicken Stew With Flour

...an a soup, and often require the use of a thickening agent to attain their traditional, savory base. When preparing stew, you can control the texture and viscosity of the liquid by using a mixture of flour and water or stock...

Is Spelt Flour Healthy?

Spelt flour is appearing in more and more mainstream products, such as bread, cereal and pasta. It is an ancient hybrid of wheat that can be used in place of wheat in almost any recipe. It is available in both white and whole-w...

Substituting All-Purpose Flour for Self-Rising

flour brings volume, structure and flavor to baked goods. Its gluten content is responsible for imparting strength and cohesion to the finished product. Traditional all-purpose flour contains 11 percent gluten-forming protein a...

Soy Flour Vs. Wheat Flour

Soy flour and wheat flour are both widely available in grocery stores, and you can use each kind for a wide variety of baked goods. While soy flour and wheat flour share some similarities, they also vary in several significant ...

How to Convert Flour to Self-Rising Flour

Many different shortcuts exist for cooks in the pantry. Self-rising flour is one of these shortcuts that has flour, salt and baking soda. If you have a recipe that calls for all-purpose flour and also calls for salt and baking ...

What Are the Benefits of Almond Flour?

Most breads, desserts and processed foods that use flour use bleached or unbleached wheat flour. While wheat flour is both nutritious and familiar, an alternative to common wheat flour is almond flour. If you are following a gl...

How to Substitute All Purpose Flour for Brown Rice Flour

Grocery store shelves contain dozens of types of flour. This number increases if you shop at a health food, or natural grocery store as the choices of gluten-free flours add to the traditional white, wheat and all-purpose varie...

All Purpose Flour Vs. Bread Flour Baking Cookies

Most cookie recipes call for all-purpose flour. A very few require cake flour or bread flour; however, sometimes you need to work with what you have on hand. Understanding how to substitute bread flour and the likely result whe...

Is Whole Wheat Flour the Same as Whole Grain Wheat Flour?

Whole wheat is used to produce a variety of foods. When wheat kernels are ground, the result is called whole wheat flour. It can also be called whole grain wheat flour. The two names can be used interchangeably. There are more ...

White Flour Diet

...gh most dieters are familiar with this simple theory, complying with it is easier said than done. Some foods are less satiating than others and either leave you hungry or make you eat too much. White flour is highly refined ...

Is Eating Flour Bad for You?

flour, the powdery substance made from ground grains, is useful for baking and thickening sauces, but its nutrition is a mixed bag. Not all flours are created equal when it comes to its affect on your health. No flour is genuin...

The Differences in Soy Flour and Flour

When baking, you have many options for the ingredients, such as flour, included in your recipes. In addition to sweeteners, altering the type of flour you use in your recipe can have a significant effect on the nutritional prof...

How to Bake With Soy Flour

Soy flour is a healthy alternative to all-purpose flour in many baked dishes. Breads, pastries, pies and gravies all benefit from soy flour's unique health qualities. Soybeans are a natural antioxidant, low in fat and promote h...

What Is the Difference Between Baking Flour & Plain Flour?

Choosing a flour for your favorite recipe can be confusing. Different types of baking flour, such as cake flour, pastry flour, bread flour and self-rising flour, each have distinct qualities that can vary performance in the kit...

What Are the Benefits of Buckwheat Flour?

Commonly used in pancakes, buckwheat flour is a high fiber, high protein alternative to white flour. It is also higher in many essential vitamins and minerals than white flour. You can use buckwheat flour in place of white or w...

What Is High Gluten Flour?

High-gluten flour, also called high-protein or bread flour, is a special type of flour used for products where you want a chewy texture and yeasty taste. Gluten is a protein in wheat that provides dough with elasticity and stre...

Soy Flour Ingredients

Soy flour only contains one ingredient: ground soybeans. Use this flour in place of grains for the healthy benefits of soy. Soy provides you with protein, can improve your cholesterol and might reduce your heart disease risk. S...

Healthy Flour for Baking

A vast percentage of the baked goods, pastries and breads you eat are made with refined wheat flour. After removing the bran, many nutrients are lost from what you commonly know as all-purpose flour. Whether you're baking bread...

Spelt Flour Benefits

Spelt is a grain similar to wheat whose origin dates back to approximately 5000 B.C., from the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern region. Italians have been consuming it for a long time under the name of "farro," and Germans have...

The Purpose of Gluten Flour

Flour made from wheat, barley or rye contains many components like, starch, sugar and enzymes, which are important for successful baking. Flour from these grains also contains proteins, gliadin and glutenin, which when combined...

Soy Flour Facts

Made from roasted soybeans, soy flour is ground into a coarse powder, which is different from the finer texture of wheat flour. Often used commercially as a thickening or bulking agent to add substance and texture to food prod...

How to Use Gluten Flour

Gluten flour is a type of refined wheat flour that is at least 40 percent gluten. It is high in protein and is often added to low-quality flours, such as all-purpose flour, to provide better texture and flavor to baked breads. ...

How to Replace All Purpose Flour With Low-Fat Soy Flour

Soy flour is made ground, roasted soy beans. Soy flour is naturally gluten-free and provides extra protein to recipes. Most soy flours in health food stores come in a full-fat version and a low-fat version. Its lack of gluten m...

How to Substitute Soy Flour for All-Purpose Flour

Soy flour is a specialty flour made from grinding dried soybeans into a fine powder. Soy flour has more moisture than regular wheat flours and is gluten-free. Cooks often use it as a thickening in soups and stews, as well as a ...

Quiche with No Flour

Preparing a quiche without flour can help if you want to make this traditionally high-calorie, fat-laden food healthier. The quiche's crust -- made with flour and butter -- is a significant source of fat, carbohydrates and calo...

Relation Between Sucrose & Starch in Flour

You may have heard that both sucrose and starch --- like the starch in flour --- are carbohydrates and that they're closely related chemically. This is true; there are many similarities between sucrose and starch, despite the f...

No White Flour Diet

White flour has had the germ and bran taken out of it which greatly lowers its nutritional value, according to the website Health-Heart. Also, the carbohydrates in white flour are absorbed quickly into your body and this causes...

What Is Amaranth Flour?

Amaranth flour is derived from the seeds of the amaranth plant. This type of flour is typically seen in health food stores, but some regular food stores carry it as well. It has grown in popularity because it is gluten-free, an...

The Benefits of Coconut Flour

Coconut flour is made from coconut that has been finely milled to a flour-like consistency. In order to give it a flour-like texture, it also has a significant amount of fat and moisture removed. You can find coconut flour onli...

Chickpea Flour Facts

In the United States, most people automatically think of wheat when a recipe calls for flour, but ground wheat is only one type of flour among dozens. Chickpea flour adds a nutty taste to baking, soups and sauces, and can subst...

3 Ways to Substitute Whole-Wheat Flour For White

Anytime you are baking things like cookies, brownies or any sweet with a higher density, you can easily substitute whole-wheat flour for white flour in the recipe. You may find that the whole wheat has more volume than the whi...