Flour

Appears in

Published 2014

About

Flour is the single most important ingredient in baking. The type of flour used, particularly its protein content and whether it is bleached or unbleached, is critical to the outcome. There are five main types of flour I use in this book: bleached cake flour, bleached and unbleached all-purpose flour, pastry flour, and bread flour. (In some rare instances, such as The Renée Fleming Golden Chiffon, I use unbleached all-purpose flour for extra structure.)

Bleaching flour is a chemical process that accelerates the natural processes of aging. One of the effects is the oxidation of carotenoid pigments in the flour, which turns the flour from ivory to white. More significant, however, are the resulting alteration of the protein molecules, which effectively denatures their gluten-forming capability, and the roughening of the surface of the starch granules. Both of these changes promote gelatinization of the starch during baking (the absorption of water and setting of the starch granules due to heating). This is important because the ability of the flour to gelatinize is critical to the ultimate texture of baked goods.