Bread baking?

Question

I have recently moved to India and can't get "strong flour" for making bread in my Panasonic bread maker. How can I turn normal flour to "strong flour"?

Answer 1

Bread flour is different from "all-purpose" in that it is higher in gluten. You can still use "all-purpose" instead of bread flour, but you might want to add wheat gluten (1-1/2 tsp per cup of flour for whole grain breads; 1 tsp per cup of flour for white breads). Wheat gluten comes in a box and you can find it near the flour/cake mix section of your supermarket. I use this ALL the time when making my breads -- it helps them to rise really nice. Added note: adding gluten to bread mixtures that use baking powder as the leavening agent will improve the protein and usually the shape, texture and taste of the resulting bread. The addition of wheat gluten will not necessarily increase rising in breads that contain baking powder as an ingredient.

There are basically 4 types of wheat flours used in a professional bakeshop. They range from "soft" weak flours to "hard" strong flours. They are classified as "Cake, Pastry, Bread and High-Gluten Flours".

Cake Flour - is used to make cakes, because of its delicate gluten (protein) structure.

Pastry Flour - has a little more structure (protein), and can be used to make pie dough, biscuits, muffins, cookies, and tart dough.

All-Purpose Flour - Not traditionally found in a bakeshops.

Bread Flour - a stronger gluten structure. Used to make white pan bread, rolls, hamburger buns, etc.

High-Gluten Flour - the strongest of all white flours. Used in making chewy bagels, pizza, hard crusted breads, etc.

Answer 2

The "hard" or "strong" flour and its higher protein/gluten levels are needed to make normal bread. The gluten helps to create the raised structure of the bread by trapping the released gases from the yeast and the vaporized moisture as the bread cooks.

As Harley said, you can add gluten to your "soft" flour to achieve results that should be about the same as if you'd started with hard flour.

Of course, if you can't find hard flour, maybe you won't be able to find gluten either? Then you'd have to order it online or by mail.

Answer 3

You can make regular flour work in your bread machine by adding Gluten. Use about one tablespoon per cup of regular flour and proceed with the rest of the recipe.

Answer 4

To turn your normal flour into a strong flour add some burglar wheat or some coarse wheat or rice to your normal flour and it will work out fine.

Answer 5

I guess by "strong", you mean a flour that is high in gluten? You can't find bread flour over there?

Try ordering this: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/detail.jsp?id=1576