Homemaker’s Handbook — For Buying Staples – Article #2
All-purpose flour is a relatively low protein flour that is made by blending hard and soft wheat flours. Hard wheat is a spring-sown wheat raised in the northern states, while the soft wheat is sown in the fall in the middle and more southerly states. This flour is designed for general household use for making both quick and yeast breads, pastries, cookies, and some cakes.
Barley flour is made by removing the outer coat form barley and then putting the barley through a pearling machine a number of times. The shelled off coats are sifted together and sold for flour. It has limited uses, but is useful for thickening soups.
Bread flour is made by milling hard wheat, and has a higher percentage of protein (11-12.5 %) and lower percentage of starch than flours made of the soft wheat. Because it has greater power to absorb liquid, it will produce more loaves of bread from a given weight than does and all-purpose or soft-wheat flour. It is sold unblended, chiefly to commercial bakeries for making only bread and rolls.
Buckwheat flour is a mixture of ground buckwheat seeds and white flour. Buckwheat is an herb rather than a cereal grass. Its seeds are ground and sifted through a courser bolting cloth than that used for cereal flours, which allows particles of hull to pass through, and gives the flour its characteristic flavor and dark color. The white flour is added to modify the naturally strong, bitter flavor of buckwheat.
Cake flour is milled especially from the highest grade of soft wheat for the chief purpose of making fine cakes. It contains a high percentage of starch and a low percentage of the protein, gluten.
Corn flour is finely ground and sifter cornmeal. It is one of the flours used to replace wheat flour in the diet of those with wheat-flour allergy.
Enriched flour is ordinary white flour with vitamin B1, and iron added to improve its nutritive value. The purpose is to return to the flour some of the nutritive value that is lost in the refining process. It is not different for ordinary flour in use, appearance, or flavor, but it is much more desirable from a nutritive standpoint.
Since the average person consumes considerably amounts of bread and other bakery products daily, it is important that these foods carry a share of the vitamins and mineral necessary for health. In the process of making refined flours, meals, and many breakfast cereal, wheat and other cereals are stripped of the outer coating and the germ. These parts contain almost all of the vitamins and minerals. During World War 2 most white flour was enriched by the addition of certain vitamins and minerals making it more nearly equal to the whole grain product in food value. The enrichment of all white bread was made mandatory as a war time measure by national legislation, and in some sections of the South enriched corn meal was also available.
Graham, Entire Wheat, and Whole Wheat flours are all the same. It is made by grinding the entire wheat grain, bran and all, usually of hard wheat. It is used in making 1—percent whole wheat breads, and mixed with white flour to make fractional whole wheat breads, and to some extent pastry and cakes.
Gluten flour is a special flour designed for making bread for diabetics. It is very high in gluten, being prepared by removing a large percentage of starch from hard wheat flour.
Oat flour is made by dehulling the oats and grinding the remaining groats to the desired fineness. It is brushed, not sifted through a sieve. It cannot be sifted because of its high oil content. Oat flour is a whole grain flour with limited uses as a stabilizer for commercial ice cream, and for the making of some soap and face powder. It is also used in poultry feeding.
Pastry or Soft Wheat flour is milled from soft or winter wheat and has a high starch, low gluten content. It is used more in the South than in the North for all kinds of quick breads and pastries. A good yeast bread can be made with it, but it is different from the bread made with hard wheat flour. Soft wheat yeast breads had less liquid, requires less kneading, more yeast, and more sugar than bread made with hard wheat or all-purpose flour.
Potato flour, Prepared from dehydrated potatoes, is a white velvety flour especially suited for making muffins and sponge cakes, and for a thickening agent if pies and fruit sauces. It may b combined with other flours to provide a change in flavor and texture.
Pumpernickel flour is a dark rye flour made by grinding whole rye grain somewhat coarser than for regular rye flour. It is often called rye meal, and is used in making pumpernickel bread and Boston brown bread.
Rice flour is milled from the cracked particles, incompletely debranned, and otherwise imperfect rice grains left from making head rice. It is practically pure white in color. For best result, rice flour should be combined with other flours, or used in combination with eggs and milk. If not used in this way, a grainy heavy product results.
Rye flour is a mixture of milled rye with enough gluten added from hard wheat flours to enable it to rise when made into yeast doughs. White rye flours are made from the inner part of the kernel, whereas the dark rye flours are taken from the outer portions of the kernel.
Self-rising flour is a soft wheat flour combined with salt and baking powder and sifted many times. In some brands, one or more additional ingredients such as sugar, powdered milk, and shortenings are added. The quick breads, cakes, and pastry mixes on the market are types of self-rising flours.
Stone-ground whole wheat or Buckwheat flour is prepared by grinding the grains or seeds between stones. The hear or germ is left in as these flours are not bolted (sifted). They make breads of superior flavor.
Soy flour manufacture began as a by-product in the extraction of oils used in producing foods, paints, etc. from soy beans. These flours are designated as full-fatted, low-fat, and defatted. The full-fat flour contains all the natural oil of the bean, the low-fat flour has 5 to 7 percent of the oil, and the defatted, 1 to 3 per cent of the oil, and most of the coloring matter removed. The low-fat flour is most commonly used in the home; the full-fat is sold in largest quantities to the food industry.
In the making of the full-fat flour beans of high quality are cracked between corrugated rolls and dehulled. They are then debittered by one of the several heat and moisture treatments, dried, cooled and milled into flour. In making of low fat flour, the dehulled debittered, dried beans are cracked and passed to a continuous screw expeller fitted with a cold water shaft to prevent scorching . When the required oil is extracted, the beans are cooled and milled. In the making of defatted flour, the oil is removed from the dried beans by a solvent extraction process, and then milled. There is relatively little of the defatted flour on the market. Soy flour is used alone, or in combination with wheat flour in the making of quick and yeast breads, cakes, cookies, and pastry; and it is commonly used as a meat “extender.” It has a high protein content, and the use of soy flour is highly recommended as a source of this and other essential nutrients.
