Rye isn’t a wheat at all, though it is a grass (Secale cereale) that produces a grain. That grain is useful in many of the same ways that wheat is useful, but truth be told, you’ve really gotta love rye if you want to make things out of it. Why? Because unlike rye’s housebroken cousin, […]
READ ONAn excellent new online resource over at Chez Jim!
READ ONInvented by the Reverend Sylvester Graham in the mid-1800’s, graham flour has all the base components of whole wheat flour in it: germ, bran and endosperm. What makes it different is the way it’s ground. Graham believed that in order to be properly absorbed by the body, the endosperm of the wheat berry must be […]
READ ONDurum is a unique species of wheat, the hardest of all the species we eat (up to 17% protein). The word itself means “hard” in Latin, and in fact not only is it chock full of protein (gluten), the character of that protein is extremely firm. No wonder, then, that it’s so good for making […]
READ ONInstant flours (like Wondra) are very interesting things, low-gluten wheat flours that are extremely handy for thickening sauces (especially gravy before a turkey dinner!). What makes them “instant”? Simply the fact that they’re cooked ahead of time so as to cause the starch granules to swell and gelatinize. Then they’re dried again. The process is […]
READ ONSelf-rising flours are generally cake or pasty flours that have leavening and salt already formulated into them. Other than that, they’re the same as other flours. I tend not to buy them very much unless I’m certain I’m getting them from a store with high turnover, since the chemical leavening loses its potency over time. […]
READ ONPastry flour is something you’ll almost never see in stores, though quite a few cookbooks call for it. Which, you know, is aggravating. The idea is that it’s not so low in protein (gluten) that it can’t stand up or rise, but not so high in protein that it will make your biscuits or pastry […]
READ ONCake flour isn’t just a very low-protein (gluten) version of all-purpose flour, it’s actually made from a completely different species of wheat known as club wheat. The wheat is cracked, sifted and very finely milled to an almost talcum powder-like consistency, making it quite light by volume (about half an ounce less per cup than […]
READ ONBread flour is much like all-purpose flour, save for the fact that it’s often made from just a single type of hard wheat (versus a blend). It’s high in gluten, as you’d expect (usually around 13 percent) and because of that it produces the highest, fluffiest and chewiest breads. Oftentimes millers will add special “dough […]
READ ON11 ounces (2 cups) White Lily all-purpose (NOT self-rising) flour OR a combination of 5 ounces (1 cup) all-purpose flour plus 6 ounces (1 1/4 cups) cake flour 1 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon baking powder 1 teaspoon sugar 2 ounces cold butter, cut into small pieces (or for best results, 1 ounce butter and 1 […]
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