Maida vs Sharps Flour - Are they different

[Luke]

Hi Guys,

Having just finished building a Tandoor Oven inside a beer keg, I've been playing with making Naan. They are turning out OK but not exactly like the restaurant version. I was doing some research about the type of flour used and "authentic" recipes talk about using Maida flour, which is supposed to be similar to pastry or cake flour (at least in consistency). Others talk about "sharps" flour, and some just infer sharps is maida flour.

I have found a link here on Maida:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maida_flour

The entry on Sharps is much less detailed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_%28flour%29

Now I have a packet of flour at home labeled "Sharps" at it looks slightly smaller than fine semolina, but still very course when it comes to flours. It is NOTHING like cake/pastry flour which is normally like plaster dust and very fine.

Can anyone enlighten me to the differences between the two - Maida vs Sharps.

Luke

[pastrygirl]

Don't know about sharps but have used maida as an all purpose flour for general baking. It is a bit on the low gluten side but otherwise pretty much all-purpose. It is not particularly coarse, so I don't think the granular sharps you have would be a very good equivalent.