Flour-what kind to use and when to add it

If you are like me, you have occasionally overworked your flour which ends up in a chewy cake or bread. Quite honestly I don't claim to be an expert in flour, but I have a good understanding. We are most likely all aware of the different types of flour: All Purpose (AP), Whole Wheat (WW), Bread, Cake, bleached and unbleached and self rising flour. I will not even begin to get into the alternative flours because they do not behave like wheat flour and require a whole different expertise. Other than Whole Wheat flour the difference between the flours is the amount of gluten, or wheat protein in them. The higher gluten flours, like bread flour, are made of, or engineered to simulate hard wheat. The lower gluten flours, like cake flour, are made of, or engineered to simulate soft wheat. You are probably wondering why I think you might want to know this. The reason is that gluten gives you the chewy quality of European bread. When you work gluten it forms protein strand, which makes your dough chewier. That is why you knead bread, to form the gluten stands. If you only use All Purpose flour you might not think this applies to you, but it does. If you add your flour too early in a cake recipe and work it too much, the cake will not be as light and fluffy as you might like. If you like a chewy pizza crust you might want to work the dough longer or invest in some Bread flour. What I really want to get down to is when I add what to baking recipes and why. If you have been paying attention to the cake and bread recipes, you have probably noticed that I start by adding the fat and sugar and I add either the liquid or flour last, depending on the nature of the recipe. The reason for this is that the gluten strands do not start forming until you add moisture, not fat but milk, water, yogurt, etc... to the flour. Take a moment to think about biscuit and pie crust recipes. On the shortbread recipe I wrote that it is impossible to over-mix it. The reason why is that you don't have any gluten treads forming. In theory, just based on gluten thread, you could use any flour in that recipe and it would turn out the same. In practice it doesn't work that way. I started it with AP and was not satisfied with the texture. When I switched to Cake flour I had to modify the amount to get the dough right. Not only does each flour have different quantities of gluten, but also different grinds, so they measure differently. If you only use weight, instead of the U.S.A. measure, you might be able to just substitute what ever flour you want, but there will still be differences in the finished texture. If you are not happy with your finished baked goods textures, try a different flour, or try adding the flour later or earlier in the process. Whole Wheat flour is it's own beast. We like to mix it into things for a variety of reasons, flavor, texture, health... The problem with WW is that it tends to create a heavy end product. That is why I was so elated at the WW pasta. From my experience(Here is where I ask for experience and opinions from others), it is better to mix WW half and half with another flour. If you replace more than 50% of the flour with WW, you risk your bread being heavy, if you replace less than 25% it seems kind of pointless to me. The other thing I would say on WW is to add it last and mix it as little as possible. I have no idea what the gluten content is in WW, nor do I know if they use soft or hard wheat to produce it. What I do know is that it is what is says it is, the whole of the wheat. Bleached vs. Unbleached I find this to be a matter of personal preference. The reality is that bleaching the flour is just one more step of refinement. From everything I have been taught, the more a food is refined the less nutrition it retains. From my way of thinking this means Unbleached. This is one of the reasons I started using raw sugar, it's just healthier. Self rising flour is another area where I am quite uneducated because I can add baking powder and baking soda for myself, thank you very much. In my mind this product is limited because if you are using buttermilk or another acidic product when baking you should be using more baking soda and less baking powder. But with this product you have no choice as to how much is in there. I hope you found this of interest and will put this knowledge to future use. If you find yourself curious about different flours, a good place to look is http://www.kingarthurflour.com/ They have a lot of varieties and excellent descriptions. I won't lie to you, they can be a bit spendy, but it is an excellent place for information and hard to find baking items.