I was given a bread machine for a wedding present going on 9 years ago now. At first I thought I would never use it. Then I realized I really enjoyed having the homemade bread. (I love the smell that it gives our home too.) When I became a stay at home mom I started using it all the more often.
There for a while my Kroger's didn't carry bread flour. For this reason I was making an additional trip to a Cubs that I ran across on occasion. Someone asked me why I didn't just use all purpose flour to make my bread. I wasn't sure. I was paying more for Bread flour and if I could just use all purpose flour I would be very happy.
I came across this article Difference between bread flour and all-purpose flour from http://www.ochef.com/. It appears there is a difference that is noticeable:
Bread flour is a high-gluten flour that has very small amounts of malted barley flour and vitamin C or potassium bromate added. The barley flour helps the yeast work, and the other additive increases the elasticity of the gluten and its ability to retain gas as the dough rises and bakes.
So it seems that it is better to use bread flour than all purpose. However, I might give it a try and let you know how it goes.
Do you have experience making breads with all purpose flour vs bread flour? Let me know.
Planned meal for tonight
Braised Balsamic Chicken
Corn
Dinner Rolls
Prep for tomorrows meal plan: Defrost pork chops for our Zesty Grilled Pork Chops. Don't forget to marinate it for 1 to 3 hours.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Bread Flour vs. All Purpose Flour
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4 comments:
I have made bread with just all-purpose flour. IT's not a truly noticeable difference, a little less risen but not too bad. It is still lighter than using all whole wheat. WHen I use whole wheat or if I want a higher loaf of all-purpose I use vital wheat gluten. It is relatively inexpensive and you only need a TSP with all-purpose. So save yourself some money, you don't need bread flour.
Thank you for the comment. Now I am sure to try to make some bread with the all-purpose flour.
I disagree with Jaime. I have been making this wonderful bread and buns for over three weeks now in my bread machine. I have an awsome recipe. Have been using bread flour. Well just ran out yesterday and the store I went to did not have any bread flour so I bought All Purpose. Not even close! Heavier buns and did not rise nearly as nice as the bread flour did. To me it is worth spending the extra money on the bread flour. After all, when you go through all the trouble of making your own bread, why not make it the best it can be!
I disagree with Brenda. All purpose flour doesn't make a very noticeable difference. She sounds too dramatic. Unless she's got a stick up her rear and gets huffy about the littlest differences, she probably just messed up her recipe for it to be so DRAMATICALLY fail.
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