July 28, 2010 - 7:12pm
flour choices
recently I have been making alot of pizza using King Arthur Sir Lancelot high gluten flour, I am just about out of it, and need more flour, looking for a flour to make breads too along with pizza dough, what are some choices that will be good for both my applications.
Chet
There's no "right answer" that I'm aware of. For example some people will only try to make Artisan bread with high-gluten "Bread" flour, while other people stoutly refuse to even consider using the stuff and at best use "All Purpose" flour. Buy a small quantity and try it, and be ready to tweak your pizza procedures and/or recipe as necessary.
You can make pretty much any bread with "high-gluten" flour (KAF Sir Lancelot, KAF Bread, etc.). The bread though risks being "chewy" or "dense" (such flour is usually used on purpose for bagels). If you have a problem, try reducing the amount of kneading a bit.
You can also make pizza crust with "All Purpose" flour. But it will have more of a tendency to tear as you stretch it to fit your pan, which won't matter if you're an expert at dough handling but will matter for us mortals.
There's no standard; every flour mill is different. The protein (gluten) content of one brand of "Bread" flour is not the same as the protein (gluten) content of some other brand of "Bread" flour.
You can easily get "too deep" in questions like this. Some professional bakeries for example will tweak their recipes (or even their flour milling instructions) as the seasons change and average humidity shifts. And most flours will change noticeably from one year to the next (KA has a reputation -well deserved from my experience- for less year-to-year variation than most other flours.) Perhaps the best answer -as a gangster might say- is "fugedabowdit".
(Not that it matters for directly answering your question, but be aware that European standards are different. What we call "All Purpose" is "high gluten" there, and what we call "high gluten" is "outrageous" there.)
Probably the best known alternative to Sir Lancelot is General Mills' high gluten flour called "All Trumps".
I am looking for a flour to make a decent bread dough and pizza dough, All Thrumps is the same as KASL, so today I picked up a bag of CON AGRA King Midas Special and see how this works
Chet