How to convert recipes for French flour?
Hi folks,
I'm in the UK, and out of curiosity ordered myself some Type 55 French flour from Shipton Mill. I have already used the majority of it on a batch of the simple 'classic French bread' from Peter Reinhart's 'Artisan breads every day'. This does not use a sourdough starter, but uses cold fermentation, and I've had decent results with it in the past.
However, I was actually rather disappointed in the results of using the French flour instead of the UK or Canadian bread flour I usually use. I understand French flour has a lower gluten content than the flour for bread generally sold in the UK, and this seemed to manifest itself in making the loaf rather dense and tight, with regular, small holes, as opposed to the larger holes and more open texture I've gotten from this recipe in the past.
I was wondering, is there anything I can do to modify the recipe to get better results from the French flour?