[Sca-cooks] flour experimentation

Carole Smith renaissancespirit2 at yahoo.com
Mon Feb 12 20:51:31 PST 2007


Well, when I looked at the website for King Arthur flours, the description each variety said it was made from hard - usually red_ wheat.  If their marketing people say one of their flours is good for every use, perhaps it is.  Or perhaps that's just how marketing people present their products.  
   
  When I want to make a dough that is kneaded I will go for the higher gluten flour every time.  Everything I have read indicates that hard wheats have more gluten.
   
  Southern flour is made from soft wheat, which is lower in gluten.  I find making tender piecrust and biscuits much easier with southern flour.  How much of that is my upbringing I cannot say.
   
  Some period recipes say take the whitest flour you have.  I would take this instruction to possibly mean use the flour which browns more slowly, which lower gluten flour does - at least in my limited experimentation thus far.
  
I will ask madbaker (Master Wulfric of Creigull) his opinion about this subject and report back to you.  He got his Laurel for baking breads in a camp oven he built from bricks and mud, among many other baking feats.
   
  I am trying to be methodical as I learn about this particular ingredient, but am still in the early stages of my search for information on the topic.
   
  Cordelia Toser
  
Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise <jenne at fiedlerfamily.net> wrote:
    > > Thanks for the links. While King Arthur is wonderful for breads and other 
> > baked items that need lots of gluten/protein, that is not what I believe 
> > people in England and other parts of Europe used for general purposes in 
> > our period. It certainly isn't as low protein as the all purpose flour 
> > you would purchase at Marks and Spencers in the present era.

I'm interested in this statement, since King Arthur brand flour comes in 
a wide variety of formulations. I was under the impression that their 
gimmick was that they required consistency in their flour formulations. 
Certainly that is not a period trait, but I get the impression that's 
not what you are talking about?

I'd like to hear more about this question and why you consider the KA 
flours in particular to be too high in gluten/protein compared to other 
flours for our re-creation.

-- 
-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net 
"I thought you might need rescuing . . . We have a bunch of professors 
wandering around who need students." -- Dan Guernsey



 
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