The purpose of this article is not to list the detailed composition of flour. However, a good pastry chef knows his raw material like the back of his hand. He understands the properties of an ingredient and knows how to master it for his recipes. Remember that ignorance always leads to approximation. Therefore, I will explain to you what you need to know in order to make better cakes/pastries and how to recognize good raw materials for your next creations.
For your general culture
Flour has been made since prehistoric times. The earliest methods used for producing flour all involved grinding grain between stones.
The millstone, a later development, consisted of one vertical, disk-shaped stone rolling on grain sitting on a horizontal, disk-shaped stone. Millstones were first operated by human or animal power. From the end of the 4th century, water mills were built in Italy. The ancient Romans used waterwheels to power millstones. Windmills appeared in England and then in Holland during the 11th century to power millstones.
At that time, the miller simply crushed the grains of wheat under the millstone of his mill and delivered them crushed to the households or to the baker who was in charge of sifting them to separate the flour from the bran.
At the dawn of the 20th century, every village along the riverside had a water mill and their own windmills.
Today, flour is made in large flour mills producing more and more varied and qualitative flours.
Very practical information : It takes 100 kg of wheat to produce 75 kg of flour.
Substitutes & characteristics of wheat grain
Flour is the basis of many pastry and bread recipes... As you get better at baking, you quickly realize that mastering your flour means increasing the likelihood of a successful cake.
There is plenty of flour as spelt, buckwheat, rice, chestnut, corn starch, acorn, chickpeas, potato starch, barley, soy, meslin, lenses, coconut ...
Here, I will not talk about gluten-free flour or alternatives for flour. The main topic of this article will be wheat, the most common cereal used to make flour.
Wheat is a cereal from the grass family (counting 2500 varieties).
Wheat grain are comprised of three parts: the bran, germ and endosperm.
-the husk, protects the grain (representing 20% of the weight of the wheat berry). At the end of the milling process, it is called the bran (rich in fibre).
-the endosperm is the central part of the seed that will become flour. Essential part of the grain representing 80% of the weight of the grain. This part contains starch (thickener) and gluten (elasticizer).
-the embryo or germ, rich in trace elements and fats, which degrade the quality of the flour by becoming rancid, is eliminated during the milling process.
There is two types of wheat:
- tender, the most common wheat for bread. It contains 8 to 10% gluten but not too much, and is easy to handle. It is found in high latitude (Europe)
- hard, contains 12-14% gluten, which is found in hot, dry regions.
The process to make flour is simple
The miller will clean (remove impurities, dust and insects), prepare and moisten to allow water to reach the almond, then grind to tear the bran and separate it from the almond.
The fragments of wheat grain are separated and white endosperm particles,are channelled into a series of smooth ‘reduction’ rolls for final milling into white flour.
And the final step is the streaming : bran and wheatgerm are streamed into this flour to make brown or wholemeal flour. Wholemeal flour contains all the parts of the grain (endosperm, germ and bran); brown flour will contain less bran and may or may not include wheat germ.
One important detail : Each time the flour is ground it passes through sieves to separate it into flours of different fineness. By sifting, separating, and regrinding the flour, several different grades of flour are produced at the same time. These are combined as needed to produce the desired final products.
But why do they produce different grades of flour ?
The proportion of bran (mineral residues) will give different properties to the flours. This part of the process is about refining.That will determine the type of flour (from white/pure flour to wholemeal flour).
What is the best flour for pastry ?
Two characteristics are important to assess the flour : the strength and the ash content.
The strength is the leavening power of flour, i.e. its ability to rise after being kneaded. It will be influenced by absorbic acid (addition), soy lecithin (addition), gluten content. When gluten is formed, it forms a screen that holds back gas, which is why the dough will swell.
The ash content is the percentage of bran (mineral residues) like I said just before. If there is a lot of bran in the flour, then there will be less gluten but more mineral nutrients.
Depending of your country, product labelling will differ. For example, in France, ash content is named T… . From T45 to T150.
So what I highly suggest you to look at the ash content before starting your recipes and buy the good flour depending on your creation.
And last tips : The more the flour is called "white" or "pure", the more gluten you get. Therefore we use these flours to make light cakes, pancakes, waffles, pastries or sandwich bread or baguettes. The higher the ash content, the lower the gluten content. Then, the flour is "complete". We can make more rustic breads with this kind of flour. In general, you can find "pure" flours in supermarkets.
Now you have can easily choose the good flour for your next creation.
Hope you’ve learned something new. Don’t hesitate to give some feedbacks or let a comment to help me improve the content. See you soon.
Lea from The Paris-Best
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