FLOURS - The body & structure

Hello,

Thank you so much friends for showing immense trust in us, we are here with our 1st chapter in "The science of Baking" series. We, always believe that in order to enhance your practical skills, it's extremely important that you know your theory well. Let's start with understanding our ingredients one at a time. We will begin with the essence of any baked product, its body and structure, which is made up of flour. FLOURS: WHEAT FLOUR: Wheat flour is the most common flour used in bakeries all around the world. In Indian scenario, we replace usage of wheat flour (Hard and soft wheat, which I'll explain later in this chapter) with All purpose flour. As of now, we need to understand that 'All purpose flour' is 'refined flour' and is usually mix of hard and soft wheat milled together. It's protein content is 10-11.5 %. A wheat kernel has 3 parts: 1. BRAN: The outer covering or coating 2. GERM: From where a new wheat plant can be sprouted 3. ENDOSPERM: The starchy part of the kernel after discarding bran and germ. The wheat flour is milled product of this endosperm. In simplified words "If the endosperm is milled whole, its whole wheat flour. The grades of flour depends upon the amount of its protein content. The interior of the flour has protein in higher quality but lower in quantity and vice versa." The wheat flour contains two types of proteins, namely, Glaidin and Glutenin. When these proteins are moistened and mixed, they form a new protein, GLUTEN. Gluten is the protein which gives the baked products it's structure and body. The two main categories of wheat are hard wheat and soft wheat. Hard wheat results in strong flour, which is high in protein and used for breads and other yeast products. Soft wheat produces weak flour as it is low in protein content and used for cakes, cookies and Pastries. The wheat derives its characteristics from variety of wheat from which its grown, location where it is grown, growing conditions, the time it is harvested, etc. It's very important for us to understand the composition of the wheat flour, which further help us in understanding its absorption rate.

Composition: Starch & small amount of sugars 68-76% Protein 6-18% Moisture 11-14% Gums 2-3% Fats 1% Ash 0.3-1.5% These are the average composition percentage. Main function of starches in the flour is to absorb water during mixing process. Whereas proteins act as binding agents that hold the starch granules together in the flour. Gums absorb much greater quantity of water than either starches or proteins. Absorption rate of the flour simply means the amount of water a flour can take up or hold while being made into a standard dough. This property of absorption also depends upon the characteristics of the wheat flour. Hence, sometimes, the recipe calls for same amount of ingredients but the flour might not absorb water as much as it did the last time. How starches, proteins and gums derive the absorption rate? - Starch highest component of flour, but absorbs only one quarter to one half its weight. - Gums absorb 10-15 times their weight in water, but they are low in quantity. -Proteins, present in significant quantity, and absorb uptime twice it's in water. Therefore, the higher the protein content of flour, the more water it can absorb. Also the composition of the flour is dependent on characteristics of the wheat. Self raising flour is usually all purpose flour with baking powder and sometimes, salt.

GLUTEN-FREE FLOURS:

Now that we have understood the basic anatomy of the wheat and its flour composition and role of Gluten, let's transit towards the "Gluten-Free Flour". Gluten-free flour is any flour which do not have Gliadin and Glutenin, which in process do not form Gluten. Now if a flour does not have its main component which gives its body and structure, how is that going to work? Here comes the different types of Gluten free flours in picture- Light flours, Medium flours and Heavy flours along with Gluten replacers in the form of Guar gum and Xanthan gum. When you are making your own gluten free flour mix, its usually trial and error till you get your perfect blend of Light, medium and heavy flours. Like in gluten flour or your simple baking, all you need is All purpose flour. But that's not the case with gluten free flour. Here, you need at least 2 types of gluten-free flours to hold its body. Following are the list of flours, you can work in combination with: Tapioca starch Potato starch Cornflour Cornstarch White rice flour Chickpea flour Millet flour Almond flour Quinoa flour

Almond flour

Oats flour

Coconut flour

I, would suggest to have a combination of 1 or 2 light flours along with 1 medium or strong flour for your gluten free flour blend.

Also lot of my students ask me a most common question, "can we substitute all purpose flour (Maida) with whole wheat flour?" The answer is, its gonna be more or less the same, depending on the protein percentage. In india, we, do not use a flour grading system. Hence, it is difficult for us to know the exact protein content and determine the strength of the flour.

I hope the above information will help us to understand our flours better.

Happy Baking,

Chef Gunjan

La Maison