June 5, 2014 - 6:40pm
Differences in flour in Canada and the US
Hamelman's recipes often call for bread flour. However since his books are written and published in the US I assume his recipes are composed most often with US ingredients. Which makes me wonder if I should be using an all-purpose flour instead of bread flour because I am using Canadian ingredients. I have read that the Canadian equivalent to American bread flour is, in many cases, all purpose.
Would anyone like to comment yay or nay?
I have come to the conclusion that bread making is like yoga. You're always "practicing".
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I'm in Montreal and did try bread flour briefly, but I found it was too expensive for me. I buy unbleached all-purpose flour and make wonderful bread with it. In Ireland and England, the flour to buy would be their 'strong flour', but here, the all-purpose is perfectly good for bread. I think the 'bread' flour started to appear on Canadian store shelves to suit the bread machines. The only American flour I've ever used was some White Lily pastry flour, so I couldn't comment on the American bread vs all-purpose flours.
The bread flour referred to in his book is sold commercially in the US as King Arthur All Purpose Flour. It has an 11.7% protein content. Other bread book authors such as Maggie Glezer and Rose Levy Berenbaum have referred to the flour for their recipes.
From their web site:
ALL-PURPOSE FLOUR, BLEACHED & UNBLEACHED, NATIONAL BRANDS - 10 to 11.5% protein
Best Use: makes average biscuits, cookies, muffins, pancakes, pie crusts, pizza crusts, quick breads, waffles, yeast breads.
-Gold Medal All-Purpose Flour, 10.5%
-Pillsbury Best All-Purpose Flour, 10 to 11.5%
-Pioneer All-Purpose Flour, 10%
-White Wings All-Purpose Flour, 10%
.
ALL-PURPOSE FLOUR, NORTHERN, BLEACHED & UNBLEACHED - 11.5 to 12% protein
Best Use: cream puffs, puff pastry, yeast breads, pizza crusts.
-Heckers and Ceresota All-Purpose Flour, 11.5 to 11.9 %
-King Arthur All-Purpose Flour, 11.7%
-Robin Hood All-Purpose Flour, 12.0%
-Five Roses All Purpose Flour, 13.0%. -Rogers All-Purpose Flour, 13.0%
BREAD FLOUR - 12 to 13.3% protein
Best Use: traditional yeast breads, bread machine, pizza crusts, pasta.
-Gold Medal Better For Bread, 12%
-King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour, 12.7%
-Pillsbury Best Bread Flour, 12.9%
-White Lily Unbleached Bread Flour, 11.7%
Thanks to all of you for your responses.
I think I'm going to look for a good source of "hard red winter wheat" and use it. If I depend on markets sometimes it's hard to get a good idea of protein content. But if the bread they produce with their own flour works, mine should too.
I can get a very inexpensive bag of Vienna Strong flour at Costco but we are really leaning more and more to organic when possible. I'm not sure that organic will make a huge difference in the final product as far as appearance goes but maybe it does make a difference in other ways.
Hi, I am new to this site. I am not a baker but my family were for centuries in Lithuania and Montreal. I read peoples' comments about Canadian and US wheat and protein content. I just was reading a British cookbook on baking, and came across this quote: "I've used Canadian bread flour -- it is high in protein which means it contains more gluten and gives an excellent, chewy texture...." The cookbook is a new one, SESAME AND SPICE by Anne Shooter. Of course the author was comparing UK and Canadian wheat, but as Ms Shooter is an expert, her comments are worth alot. I really enjoyed reading everyones' comments about US and Canadian flour.