Ingredients Flours

Dry ingredients are usually in particle form, such as flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices. These ingredients tend to need sifting. Wet ingredients are ingredients that need to be poured. These include milk, water, juice, eggs, oil, etc. Solid ingredients refer to non-liquids and include butter, cream cheese, sour cream, yogurt, chocolate, nuts and fruit. Recipes are made of individual ingredients that are put together in a specific way to create a final product. It goes without saying that each ingredient should be of the highest quality, but ingredients also carry out specific functions. Each ingredient plays a role within a recipe to form a final product. Recipes…..

Hard Wheat Soft Wheat Soft Wheat flours have a low protein content. Wheat Flour is the most important ingredient in a bakeshop because it provides structure and strength to products, including breads, cakes, cookies and pastries. Hard Wheat Soft Wheat Hard wheat flours contain greater quantities of proteins called gluten when the flour is moistened and mixed. Strong Flours are flours made from hard wheat with a high protein content Used for making breads and yeast products. Soft Wheat flours have a low protein content. Used for making cookies, cakes and pastries. Weak Flours are flours made from soft wheat.

Composition of Wheat Kernel: 3 Parts Bran Hard outer covering of kernel. Present in whole wheat flour and high in dietary fiber. Germ Part of the kernel that becomes new wheat plant if allowed to sprout. High in fat and can quickly become rancid. Endosperm Is the white starchy part of the kernel that remains when bran and germ are removed. This portion is milled into white flour.

The Milling of Wheat The Purpose of milling wheat is twofold: 1. To separate the endosperm from the bran and germ…….. 2. To grind the endosperm to a fine powder.

The Milling Process: A Simplified Flowchart Harvested wheat is broken by rollers, separating bran and germ layers from endosperm into “break flour” Purifying: Any remaining bran particles are removed by air blowers. Reducing: Smoother rollers finely grind endosperm into flour. Sifting: Flour is sifted according to particle size into different streams. Classifying: Places specific types of flour together depending upon the type of wheat. Wheat was once made into flour by grinding it between two stones. Once the grain was ground, it was sifted to remove some of the bran. This sifting is called bolting.

Grades of Flours: Patent Flour: Highest quality of all commercial grades of white flour. It contains no bran or germ, but contains the inner most part of the endosperm. Low in ash, white in color. Extra-short or fancy patent are high quality patent flours. Clear Flour: The lowest quality of all commercial grades of flour. It is milled from the outer part of the endosperm. High in protein and ash, and slightly gray in color. It is less expensive than patent flour. It is commonly used in rye and whole grain breads. Straight Flour: Is milled from the entire endosperm. Straight flour uses all streams of the milling process and is darker in color than patent flour. Straight flour is not often used in North American baking.

Composition of Flour Starch: White flour consists of 68 to 76% starch. Starch can absorb ¼ to ½ of its weight in water. Protein: About 6 to 18% of white flour is protein, depending on the variety of wheat. Proteins act as binding agents that hold the starch granules together in the endosperm. About 80% of the proteins in flour are gluten. Moisture: Flour should always be stored in a dry place. The moisture content of flour in good condition is 11-14%. Any higher and spoilage will occur. Gums: Gums are forms of carbohydrates that make up 2-3% of white flour. Some gums can absorb 10 to 15 times their weight in water and serve as a source of fiber. Fats: Fats only make up about 1% of white flour but it is important to be aware of them for gluten development and spoilage, giving flour an off flavor. Ash: Is the mineral content of flour. The higher the ash content, the darker the flour. The ash content is determined by burning a sample of flour in a controlled environment. Pigments: Orange-yellow pigments called carotenoids are present in flour in tiny amounts. It gives flour a creamy color, rather than white.

You Should Also Know……… Absorption refers to the amount of water a flour can take up and hold while being made into a simple dough. Freshly milled flour is not good for bread making. Aging flour is costly and haphazard, however, so millers may add small quantities of certain chemicals to accomplish the same results quickly. Enriched Flour is flour to which vitamins and minerals, mostly vitamins B and Iron, were added to compensate for the nutrients lost when the bran and germ were removed. Types of Flours: Straight flour Patent Bread flour Clear flour Hi-Gluten flour Cake Flour Pastry flour All Purpose flour

Bread Flour: Is patent flour made from hard wheat and is ideal for yeast breads. High-Gluten Flour: Flour with an especially high protein content that is sometimes used for hard crusted breads, pizza dough and bagels. It is also used to strengthen dough that contain little or no gluten. A high gluten flour has 14% protein. Cake Flour: Is a weak or low-gluten flour made from soft wheat. It has a soft smooth texture and a pure white color. It is used for cakes and other delicate baked goods that require low gluten content. Pastry Flour: Is also a weak flour or low-gluten flour, but is slightly stronger than cake flour. It has a creamy white color. Pastry flour is used for pie dough, cookies, biscuits and muffins. Types of Patent Flours Bakers generally use the term patent flour to mean patent bread flour. Technically, all white flour except clear flour and straight flour is patent flour, including cake and pastry flours.

Hand Test For Flour Strength….. Bread Flour Lump falls apart as soon as hand opens. Color is creamy white and feels slightly coarse. Cake Flour Feels smooth and fine. Color is pure white. It stays in a lump when squeezed in the hand. Pastry Flour Feels smooth and fine. It can be squeezed into a lump. Has creamy color of bread flour. A typical small bakery keeps three white wheat flours on hand: cake flour, pastry flour, and bread flour such as patent. You should be able to identify these by sight and touch, because sooner or later, someone will dump a bag of flour into the wrong bin or label it incorrectly. You will need to recognize the problem. Hand Test For Flour Strength…..

Other Wheat Flours…….. All-purpose Flour: Used in retail markets and used as a general purpose flour in restaurants. Protein content is 11-11.5%. Durum Flour: Made from durum wheat and used primarily to make spaghetti and dried pastas. Also used in semolina bread. Self-rising Flour: White flour to which baking powder uniformly and sometimes, salt has been added. However, different formulas call for different proportions of baking powder. Also, baking powder loses its aerating or leavening power with time. Whole Wheat Flour: Made with the entire wheat kernel and high in fat. The whole wheat flavor is strong. Bran Flour: Flour to which bran flakes have been added. Cracked Wheat: Is not a flour, but a type of meal, in which the grains are broken into coarse pieces. It is used to give texture and flavor to specialty breads.

Other Flours, Meals, Starches…… Rye Flour Corn Contains some protein, but does not form gluten of good quality. Therefore breads made with 100% rye flour hare heavy and dense. To make a lighter loaf, typical formulas call for 25 to 40% rye flour and 60 to 75% hard wheat flour. Rye flour is high in pentosan gums, which give structure to breads, but they interfere with gluten development and make dough stickier than wheat dough. Contains no gluten forming proteins, but is very important in vegetarian diets. Blue and Yellow cornmeal are available. Most cornmeal is only made from the endosperm. Cornmeal is available from grinds made from fine to coarse.

Rolled Oats Used for porridge and steamed to soften them. Used for textural interest for breads and ingredients in cookies. Steel-cut Oats Whole grains that have been cut into small pieces. They have a long cooking time and a chewy texture. Oat Flour & Bran Oat Flour is whole grain oats ground into a fine flour. Oat Bran is a good source of dietary fiber used in muffins. Buckwheat is technically not a grain because it is the seed not of a grass but of a plant with branched stems and leaves. Buckwheat flour is mostly found in pancakes and crepes, but can also be used in small quantities in specialty breads and multigrain products. Oats in various forms find uses in the bakeshop. Spelt is considered to be an ancestor of modern wheat. It contains gluten proteins but they form a rather weak gluten structure that can’t withstand much mixing. It has become increasingly popular as an ingredient in specialty breads.

SOY Soy is not a grain but a legume or bean. It can be ground into flour like a grain. It is low in starch and contains no gluten. It is high in fat and protein. This makes it valuable in vegetarian diets. In baking, soy flour can aid in yeast action but must be used in small quantities because high amounts produce a beany flavor to breads that also result in poor texture. When soy flour is toasted the enzymes that aid in yeast action are destroyed and the flour has a more pleasant flavor.

Cornstarch This product sets up almost like gelatin when cooled. It is used to thickened cream pies and other products that must hold their shape Waxy Maize Is made from a different type of corn and almost always manufactured in a form called modified food starch. It does not break down when frozen and gives a clear appearance to fruit pie fillings. Instant Starches Are precooked or pregelatinized so they thicken cold liquids without further cooking. They are useful when heat will damage the flavor of a product. Starches Unlike flour, they are used primarily to thicken puddings, pie fillings and similar products.