What is Bakers flour?.
Bakers flour is simply a high protein (gluten) flour, its what helps give bread and pizza dough its elasticity.You know how we call pastry ‘short pastry’ or shortbread has the word ‘short’ in it? Well this is referring to the gluten.You know how when we make pastry, scones and shortbread, the first thing we do is combine cold butter and flour, well, gluten is activated by liquids, so by coating the flour granules in fat first, this creates a barrier from the liquid, and therefore ‘shortening’ the gluten strands. So once cooked the texture is crumbly, a perfect pastry or shortbread is deliciously crumbly or ‘short’.
When we make breads we want the opposite, we want to get that gluten wet and start it stretching.This is why we knead bread and not pastry.The gluten is stretching and this is giving our dough its elasticity so that as the yeast activates and carbon dioxide bubbles form, the dough expands but is held together by the gluten.
Now here's the thing, regular every day plain flour in Australia, is actually quite high in protein, so for doughs its actually perfect. And for ‘short’ doughs? Its fine too, but if you want to be really fancy, just add a teaspoon of cornflour or rice flour per cup of flour for perfect pastry, shortbread and sponges.
Bakers flour is simply a high protein (gluten) flour, its what helps give bread and pizza dough its elasticity.You know how we call pastry ‘short pastry’ or shortbread has the word ‘short’ in it? Well this is referring to the gluten.You know how when we make pastry, scones and shortbread, the first thing we do is combine cold butter and flour, well, gluten is activated by liquids, so by coating the flour granules in fat first, this creates a barrier from the liquid, and therefore ‘shortening’ the gluten strands. So once cooked the texture is crumbly, a perfect pastry or shortbread is deliciously crumbly or ‘short’.
When we make breads we want the opposite, we want to get that gluten wet and start it stretching.This is why we knead bread and not pastry.The gluten is stretching and this is giving our dough its elasticity so that as the yeast activates and carbon dioxide bubbles form, the dough expands but is held together by the gluten.
Now here's the thing, regular every day plain flour in Australia, is actually quite high in protein, so for doughs its actually perfect. And for ‘short’ doughs? Its fine too, but if you want to be really fancy, just add a teaspoon of cornflour or rice flour per cup of flour for perfect pastry, shortbread and sponges.
Thanks this is really handy. I wanted to substitute spelt flour for the baker's flour that is recommended in a lot of the recipes.
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