October 19, 2017 - 2:02pm
Not sure what this flour is in the UK
I am new and have been looking through the lessons to start. I am based in the UK and am confused by the flours in the enriched bread in the lessons. I know the second flour but not sure about the first?
2 cups all-purpose enriched unbleached flour
1 cup bread flour (or all-purpose flour, if you do not have bread flour)
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We do not have bleached flour in the UK so don't worry about finding unbleached. It's all unbleached.
We also don't have AP flour however you can make an AP flour by combining 50:50, by weight, very strong bread flour and plain flour.
Plain flour (or cake flour) is weak in protein so we're talking about 10% protein or less. This is good for cakes and biscuits. Bread flour (or strong bread flour) is high protein and we're talking about 13% protein. Very strong bread flour is 14% protein +.
AP flour falls in-between, is around 11-12% protein and can be used for either cakes and biscuits or bread. Hence the All Purpose.
Enriched has added vitamins and minerals. As far as I know most, if not all, our flour is enriched.
So you need to make AP flour by combining 50:50 very strong bread flour with plain flour. Or bread flour with plain flour in the ratio of 75:25. It's difficult to get it exactly right but that's an educated guess. If you can find a bread flour at around 12% (we don't differentiate between AP and some bread flour in that protein range) then you can use that.
So simply put they want AP flour = 11-12% protein
And bread flour which is 13% protein or higher.
Thank you. This was so helpful. The strong bread flour I was using was only 12% so have bought some stronger at 14% and am using the other as AP flour now. Am making small batches of 3 different recipes today to see which one gives the best result for white rolls and which one lasts the longest. I have all my flat type breads spot on but rising bread is still something to explore and learn :)
Instead of trying to mix flours in different proportions to try and get a perfect match, using the 14% protein as strong bread flour and 12% as an AP flour should be just fine to give you an idea of what works best and which you prefer.
It's difficult when flour is so varied across the globe. Not to mention the terminology.