[Sca-cooks] flour: reading the label

[Carole Smith]

Hi Bear,
   
  Oh yes, matching traditional European flour is my goal.  I am not convinced that malted barley was added in period, and that is the main reason I want to avoid the enriched stuff that is commonly available.  
   
  I would prefer unbleached flour, if it weren't for the higher gluten/protein.  From my reading it would seem that bleaching agents used in the preparation of flour do a similar job to naturally aging the flour - at least as far as the color is concerned.  I'll get some unbleached flour and seal it up for a couple of years to see what happens to the color.
   
  Why do you feel that whole wheat flour is what the noble households used for everything?  This was an era when whiter food was more desirable, which would lead me to think that whiter flour would be used in royal kitchens.
   
  Cordelia Toser
  
Terry Decker <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net> wrote:
  Check the nutritional information on the bags. Gold Medal All Purpose is 
10% protein. High gluten bread flours are up around 14% protein. Soft 
flours usual run 9% down to about 7%. If you want to match traditional 
European flours, soft flours are the closest match, but you can fudge with 
the Gold Medal.

In the past, I have been able to get bulk whole wheat pastry flour from a 
local health food store, which is probably as close to period European flour 
as you are going to get. Both Arrowhead Mills and Bob's Red Mill produce 
whole wheat pastry flour. Quite a few groceries carry one or the other or 
both and might be willing to special order for you.

The problem with cake flour isn't that it's "enriched," it's that most cake 
flours are chlorinated to bleach them white, however neither chlorination 
nor enrichment seems to affect the baking.

Bear


From: "Carole Smith" 


> 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.
>
> What I am trying to find a lower protein flour that is readily available 
> outside the Southern states. I don't particularly want to use cake flour, 
> as it's enriched. The closest I have found so far is at Costco. 
> Unfortunately it only comes in 50 lb. bags. Some of the chi chi cooking 
> stores sell pastry flour. I should check that out.
>

_______________________________________________
Sca-cooks mailing list
Sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org


 
---------------------------------
The fish are biting.
 Get more visitors on your site using Yahoo! Search Marketing.