Bought some Italian flour--Now What?
I wasn't planning on it, but I just happened to come across some important doppio zero flour at the farmer's market. At $1.69 for a 1000g bag, I thought what the heck. I have yet to open the bag, but I know from reading about doppio zero flours that it's very finely milled and not very high in protein. The bag seems to indicate it's good for cake, bread, and pasta. I am only interested in using it for bread or pizza crust. What I am unsure of is how to utilize this flour in a bread recipe. Does it need to be mixed with a strong bread flour to produce decent bread? Or is to be used as it is? The brand is something like Delvededre; the four description is farina granaro tenero (sorry if I butchered that, but I'm going by memory).
Thanks,
Mike
There shoud be a code on the bag indicating the strength of your flour, something like "W200". What is it?
Tipo 00 refers to the grind, not to the gluten content.You can have 00 pastry flour but also higher gluten 00 flours. In Itally, many varieties of 00, both high gluten and low gluten, are available to bakers.
As you don't give your location, I can't see where you purchased it (USA or other). Most 00 flours here in the specialty stores here are about equivalent to gluten content of American AP flours. My suggestion is knead a small portion with water to see your gluten development if you can't find or understand the indicators on the bag.
I purchased it at the Dekalb Farmer's Market in Decatur for anyone who might be in the vicinity. I'm looking at the bag now and the brand name is Delverde. The product is Farina "00" di Grano Tenero. The English translation on the bag says "soft wheat flour". In the nutritional value the protein is listed as 10g.
Since your purchase is made from soft wheat, and the protein content is somewhat low it is in the class of a pastry flour.
For pizza, low protein flours are used in making the Neapoliltan style crusts. There are tons of recipes out there, however many of them have been butchered and don't resemble anything close to authentic. There are some that are close saying to use 1 cup cake flour, then 2 cups AP flour. I would go for one of these and just substitute your type 00 for the cake flour. The general consensus on the recipes seems to be about a 1/3 ratio of the low protein to regular flour.
Also note though that since a lot of these Neapolitan style recipes intended to emulate authentic crusts are intended to be baked in ovens at 550 F and more, you may wind up with a less than satisfactory end product. Personally I would use the purchase for pies and pastry instead of a pizza.
Google search is your best friend here. I don't like to recommend recipes unless I have tried them myself as there are so many hacked up ones out there that people perceive as good.
The recipe in Richard Bertinet's Crust uses half tipo 00 flour and half regular bread flour. It makes for a very soft texture compared to other ciabattas that I've tried. I'm sure you could try this combo in most ciabatta recipes.
Summer
I finally got around to trying the doppio zero flour I bought a couple weeks back. I took the advice on here and used it for a focaccia formula based on Dan Leader's Grape Harvest Focaccia in Local Breads. I used a 50/50 mix of AP and 00 flour. I also skipped the grapes (actually had seedless grapes on hand, but wanted a more savory bread). I chopped up some fresh rosemary from the bush in my backyard to go along with the olive oil and coarse sea salt. I use a stand mixer, so I didn't really handle the dough much. The 00 looked a little finer, and I do think the overall strength of the dough was less than it would be if I'd used all AP. It didn't rise too much in fermenting, but puffed up nicely in the oven. Taste is pretty good.
I think I'll try it with my leftover 00 flour.
Summer