What Flour?

Flour for baking and cooking, what flour should you buy?

Here is a little help on understanding the different types of flour and how they can be used without getting into the scientific and professional bakery stuff! So you want to bake bread, make a cake or use flour to make fried chicken---what should you buy?

All-Purpose Flour (AP) is just that, it can be used for many applications.

All-purpose flour a/k/a AP is a general use white flour and would be fine for all of the above. White flours are made from the starchy center of wheat (endosperm) without the germ and bran portion of the kernel, as opposed to whole wheat flour which also contains the bran and germ (because it does, it isn't white but rather light tan and a tad mealy). All-purpose flour is a blend of hard and soft flours with about a 9 to 11 percent protein content. Wheat flours are called soft if gluten content is low and produces a fine texture, and are called hard if they have high gluten/protein content with a chewy texture. If you bake, you’ve probably used all-purpose flour. It's good for just about anything; bread, cakes, pancakes…but in some cases, a better choice can be found.

First learn about Hard & Soft Wheat

Unbleached/Bleached

Now consider bleached (no, not with bleach) and unbleached all-purpose flour. Bleached and unbleached, what's the scoop? Bleached flour produces a whiter bread, biscuit or pancake. Bleaching is a chemical process used to make the flour whiter in appearance and to improve its properties. No change occurs in the nutritional value of the flour and no chemical residues remain. Freshly milled flour is not white, but bleaching does not yield results that are as good as aged flour. Aging naturally bleaches the flour through oxygenation and also tends to improve the gluten. Unbleached is natural and has a slight tan tint after milling. Use whatever you like!

Example---The standard Pillsbury Best All Purpose Flour is bleached. It is treated with chemical agents to improve color and baking performance, often labeled as "Bleached, Enriched". It is a versatile blend of hard and soft wheat, ideal for cakes, cookies, and breads.

Chemical bleaching of flour is banned in the European Union and the UK.

Other flours:

Bread Flour.
King Arthur Bread flour, is 12.7% protein and is great for breads, pasta and pizza. There are many protein levels depending on the brand with some as high as 13.4% protein. For crustiness and chew it's my first choice. FYI, you can add vital wheat gluten to increase the protein level for even chewier results especially when making bagels. Consider these two commercial bakery flours--- ADM Regal® flour is a professional bread baker's flour. The protein is 14.2%, it has excellent mixing tolerance and excellent absorption properties. Regal is ideal for bagels; Kaiser rolls; thin-crust pizza; and Italian, French and Jewish breads. Another ADM flour is Cavalier® with protein at 14.3%. If you’re looking for a high-protein flour with a slightly darker crumb, its unmatched fermentation tolerance makes it perfectly suited for sourdough and specialty breads.

Pastry Flour---aka. Baking Flour outside the USA

Pastry Flour-Baking Flour comes in at about 9% protein. Professionally and even for home bakers, pastry flour is the way to go for flaky pie dough, Danish pastry and cookies. It absorbs a bit less water so you will get a better blend of ingredients and less toughness. You will also see whole wheat pasty flour in markets, it's okay but I still think the good old white pastry flour is without equal for my pie dough and cookies!

White Whole Wheat
White Whole Wheat flour, fairly new to the market, is milled the same way as whole-wheat, but using hard white wheat berries instead of red wheat and it has a sweeter flavor. It's a good choice for homemade bread; choose white whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose or combine half and half in your next bread or pizza dough recipe.

Whole Wheat Flour is rich in nutrients and dietary fiber, but it poses some challenges for beginning bakers because it usually absorbs water differently than white flour and may need the addition of gluten to reduce crumbliness. Still it makes wonderful and flavorful health breads. 

Self-Rising Flour is a blended mix that combines all-purpose flour, salt and a leavening agent. It is a convenience to have everything already to go if you like making biscuits, pancakes, or cornbread. National brands of self-rising flour to look for are Gold Medal and Pillsbury.

Semolina and Durum Flour Semolina is actually just a type of flour made from durum wheat at 13 to 13.5% protein, it is granular and is coarser than most milled flours. If you make pasta, you’ll definitely need semolina. Don't get confused with cornmeal---it is not the same. In Italy semolina is also used for some breads and to make polenta instead of using cornmeal.

Durum Flour is an unbleached flour left over from the milling process from the hard durum wheat and also a product of semolina that's ground further. Durum flour is used for making pasta, noodles and some specialty breads. If milled coarsely and cooked it is cous-cous and even a delicious breakfast porridge with butter, cream and nutmeg! 

Cake Four, Cakes made with all-purpose flour may have too much gluten, making them tough and dense. Bread made with all-purpose flour may not have enough gluten, making it too fragile. If you are a perfectionist, using cake flour for cakes is recommended. Why? Cake flour contains less protein than all-purpose flour which means it will produce a tenderer product and is also bleached by design. Swans Down and Softasilk cake flour come in at 7.5 to 8.5% protein. Bake cakes, quick breads, muffins and pancakes with it and they will be light with a nice crumb. The next time you bake a cake, you’re going to want to have some cake flour on hand.

There are even more considerations such as pH, ash content and moisture content in flour and they all play a role in professional baking. As a home baker you will most likely only need four types of flour in your kitchen. A good brand of all-purpose, a cake flour, a whole wheat and a bread or high-gluten flour. Depending where you live, your grocery store shelves will have all you need!

    

00 Flour is worthy of mention if you make pizza dough, Scali and Italian bread!

BEWARE---Just because you use 00 flour for pizza dough doesn't mean your pizza will come out like pizza in Naples Italy! There are many considerations; water to flour ratio, amount of yeast, how much salt is used, the use of a poolish, fermenting no less that 8 hours and the temperaure of the oven and it's HOT! A minimum temperature of 800 degrees F to as much as 1,000 degrees F (426.7–537.8°C) is a standard. On a recent trip to Napoli a Pizzaoa said that he likes 825 F (440 C), so the crust doesn't char too much.

Caputo is a popular brand from Naples, yet there are many other brands of 00. 00 is just the measure of the milling fineness in Europe. Capouto make two diffrent 00 flours; Chef's Flour (Red Bag) and Pizzeria (Blue Bag)---this relates to a general kitchen use flour and a specific "For Pizza Flour" that's a brand formula secret for them. 00 flour is a very fine-textured flour a/k/a Italian pizza flour and may also be known as Manitoba flour. It's protein content hovers between 10-12%. It produces a dough that is easy to work with: handles well, is smooth and easy to shape. The resulting baked goods are light, airy, and have a crisp snap to the crust and a nice crumb. It's ideal for focaccia and pasta too albeit a bit expensive.

Capouto is a large company with many brands, from seven types of flour at last count, canned Italian tomatoes, olives and olive oil, not to metion buffalo mozarella. Think of it as an Italian company like General Mills!

European Flour

European flour is primarily classified by its ash content—the amount of minerals left behind after the flour is burned—rather than just protein levels. This system measures how much of the wheat's outer bran and germ remains, which determines the flour's refinement, flavor, and color.

Comparison of Major European Flour Systems
Different countries use their own numbering systems, which can be mapped to roughly equivalent American varieties.

Usage / Type Italian (Milling) French (T-Number) German (Mehltype) US Equivalent
Pastry / Cake Type 00 T45 Type 405 Pastry / Cake Flour
All-Purpose Type 0 T55 Type 550 All-Purpose Flour
Artisan Bread Type 1 T65 Type 812 Bread Flour
Whole Wheat Integrale T150 Type 1600 Whole Wheat

Country-Specific Highlights

Italy: Classified by the fineness of the grind from 00 (ultra-fine) to 2 (coarse). Bakers also use the W rating to measure "strength" or elasticity; for example, a Caputo Chef’s Flour Tipo 00 often has a high W rating for long fermentation.

France: The "T" numbers (like T45 or T55) represent the ash percentage (e.g., T45 has ~0.45% ash). T55 is the standard choice for traditional baguettes.

Germany: Numbers indicate milligrams of mineral per 100g of flour (e.g., Type 405 has 405mg of minerals). They also have extensive classifications for Rye (Roggenmehl), such as Type 815 (light) and Type 1150 (dark).

Key Differences from North American Flour

Wheat Variety: Europe grows more soft wheat and white wheat varieties, while North America focuses on Hard Red Spring/Winter wheats.

Digestibility: Many consumers find European flour easier to digest because it is often unbleached, not treated with chemicals like bromate, and naturally lower in gluten.

Specific Products: Authentic brands like Antimo Caputo and Anna Flour are gold standards for specialized tasks like Neapolitan pizza or pasta.