Soft wheat flour

[thecuriousone]

Hi All-

I use white lilly flour for cakes and get reliable results. It's hard to find in other parts of the country and I'm sure that I scared the TSA screeners to death when I packed 5 lbs of it in a cooler I took with me when I had plans to bake at a relatives home. I checked the cooler as baggage on my flight, but it was hand searched in both directions.

Are there other brands of soft winter wheat flour sold in retail outlets? Are there any suggestions of brands to look for if I cant find while lilly? Are there any tricks that the professionals use that you might be able to pass along in order to ensure a tender cake when you dont know anything about the flour you have to work with?

Thanks for any and all comments!

[baroness]

King Arthur's 'Queen Guinevere Cake Flour'.

[alanamoana]

Swan's Down cake flour is good and usually available all over the place.

[Hahabogus]

Hi All-

I use white lilly flour for cakes and get reliable results.  It's hard to find in other parts of the country and I'm sure that I scared the TSA screeners to death when I packed 5 lbs of it in a cooler I took with me when I had plans to bake at a relatives home. I checked the cooler as baggage on my flight, but it was hand searched in both directions.

Are there other brands of soft winter wheat flour sold in retail outlets?  Are there any suggestions of brands to look for if I cant find while lilly?  Are there any tricks that the professionals use that you might be able to pass along in order to ensure a tender cake when you don't know anything about the flour you have to work with?

Thanks for any and all comments!

←

You can tell the gluten content of flour roughly from the protein content listed on the bag.

The higher the number the harder the flour. And all the bread makers are aware of the window pane test, which is another method of testing for high gluten.

All purpose flour is roughly 10 to 12% , Cake flour is roughly 6 to 8%, pastry is roughly 8 to 10% and bread flour is roughly 12-14%

Now you can replicate cake flour by using all-purpose flour ...but remove 3 tbsp and replace it with 3 tbsp of either corn starch or potato starch per cup.

[prairiegirl]

What is the window pane test?

[Hahabogus]

What is the window pane test?

←

You stretch a small pinch of dough and it gets thin enough to see through (translucent) before it breaks. Indicates gluten content is good the farther you stretch it before it breaks the better for bread making.

[papalolo]

In my opinion and experience the best way to tell if a flour is soft (low gluten content) is to simply take a fistful and squeeze it. The more compact a ball you make, the softer the flour, with good bread flour you actually can't squeeze a ball at all. When you read the protein content on the side of a bag of flour its kind of hit and miss. protein content is sort of an arbitrary marker since there are alot of other proteins in wheat...gliadin, amino acids, etc... that can affect the percentage. Best bet is get a litteral feel for your flour and then look for something that has the same feel.

[BadRabbit]

My mother just sent me some flour from a local mill. The label says "soft flour". Is this similar to A-P?

Also, is there a way to determine aproximate protein level on a flour with no nutritional label?

[tino27]

Soft flour is going to have lower protein levels in it than hard flours. This would be more suitable for baked goods with a more tender crumb like cakes, muffins, etc. That doesn't mean it can't be used for bread, and in fact, traditionally the flour used for making baguettes is a lower protein flour. There is a way to gauge what percentage of protein is in the flour through some mathematical wizardry, and I think it is in one of Peter Reinhart's books. Unfortunately, I don't have the books in front of me to check.

If you have some AP flour with a known protein content, you can try this test. Take 50 grams of known AP flour and 50 grams of your mystery flour. Add 30 grams of room temperature water to each and stir to combine each. Give them about 10-15 minutes to hydrate as much as they can. The higher the protein in the flour, the more water it will absorb. Gauge the results of your mystery against the known quantity of your AP flour with water.

[Big Joe the Pro]

They did a thing on "America's Test Kitchen" where they took equal amounts of different types of flours (in different bowls, of course) and mixed them with equal amounts of water. The cake flour was kinda soupy whereas the bread flour started to form. I think it was in one of the earlier seasons, I'm presently re-watching them (as I recently scored their ten year book). I'll repost with more details when I come across it or perhaps someone else can fill us in.

[Mjx]

I've nothing to add to the advice about determining flour type, but if you don't have cake flour, adding a bit of corn starch will generally give quite good results (I've found that potato and rice starch work equally well), but I'm not a professional, so this is not specialized, insider knowledge.

For each 130 g (about 4.6 oz) of all-purpose flour, swap out two tablespoons of flour, and replace them with an equal amount of corn starch. I wish I could give credit for this recommendation, but all I have is an uncited marginal scrawl (For cake fl., per cup 7/8 AP+2T corn flour; I'm about 90% certain it was CI).

Until recently I couldn't weigh such small amounts accurately, but this morning's experiments with my lovely new lab scale indicate that both a tablespoon of AP flour and one of corn starch (scooped and levelled) weigh 9 g (0.3 oz). It's very humid in Denmark, and the kitchen is particularly cold and damp, so that may need to be taken into account.