September 27, 2010 - 10:11am
Can someone explain these flours to me?
I just got a new baking book and it has terms that I'm not familiar with, can somebody please clarify these for me?
Strong flour/Strong plain flour/Strong white flour
Wholemeal flour
Soft flour
Granary/Malthouse flour
Some of the recipes also call for fresh yeast but after reading the thread on fresh yeast below I think I prefer to stick with dried yeast, what would be the conversion from fresh to dry?
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Strong flour/Strong plain flour/Strong white flour - A white bread flour with a high protein content, like King Arthur Short Patent or Sir Lancelot. This type of flour helps give a good strong rise to breads, especially those with grains.
Wholemeal flour - A flour that contains the germ and bran of the kernel. Such as whole wheat flour, whole spelt flour. Provides more nutrients but a different taste that white.
Soft flour - I imagine they are referring to pastry flour when they mean soft flour. This is a flour made from wheat that has lower protein content, typically not used for bread baking but making pastries.
Granary/Malthouse flour - Unsure of this, sorry.
Yeast Conversions:
Fresh to Active Dry Yeast - Multiply weight of fresh yeast by .4
Fresh to Instant Dry Yeast - Multiply weight of fresh yeast by .33
You can get the details from 'Hovis' and/or 'Dove Farms' websites
These flours are 'mixtures', not actual flour 'types'...they both contain flakes of malted wheat, instead of (the more familiar?) malted barley, used in beer and whisky making. I think 'malthouse' has a dash of rye flour added, as well, but they're similar products.
These are very 'British' products. I've never seen them for sale elsewhere; I've only read about them on manufacturers' websites and blogs
Cheers,
copyu
the book is, hence the terms. I will look into the malt flakes, thanks!
...were probably UK-based. I think you can find a good start here:
http://www.goodnessdirect.co.uk/cgi-local/frameset/detail/431679_Doves_Farm_Organic_Speciality_Malthouse_Flour__1kg.html
http://www.ochef.com/746.htm
Best,
copyu
I think granary/malthouse four is WW based, not white flour based.
Here's a simple explanation on the flour by UK Flour Advisory Bureau.
granary flour
How it's blend varies from a miller to a miller, but generally it has a lovely deep flavour and usually slightly lighter than pure WW flour. I often use it to add some depth in flavour to white flour based breads in stead of WW as well as using it on its own.