Hand Test for Flour Strength

A typical small bakery keeps three white wheat flours on hand: cake flour, pastry flour, and a bread flour such as patent. You should be able to identify these three by sight and touch, because sooner or later someone will dump a bag of flour into the wrong bin or label it incorrectly, and you will need to be able to recognize the problem.

Bread flour feels slightly coarse when rubbed between the fingers. If squeezed into a lump in the hand, it falls apart as soon as the hand is opened. Its color is creamy white.