There are many types of wheat flour: tart flour, krupczatka flour, sieve flour, wholemeal flour. It doesn't matter which flour you use to make bread, biscuit dough, pasta or pizza. Wheat flours differ not only in appearance, but also in nutritional value and application. It's worth getting to know their properties to make a good purchase. Read what you should know about wheat flour.

Wheat flour is made from milled grainwheat . However, recognizing the different types of wheat flour is not that easy. Finer and whiter flours come mainly from the inner part of the grain, the so-called endosperm, hence their name: endosperm flour. In darker (wholemeal) flours, apart from endosperm, there are also fragments of fruit and seed cover. Depending on the grinding thickness, flours can be smooth or grainy. A good flour should have a peculiar smell, without foreign odors, and a slightly sweet taste. Its distinctly sweet taste shows that it was made of sprouting grains, and a bland-sweet and honey-like smell that it was infected with a cereal and flour pest. Good quality wheat flour has a uniform white color with a cream or light gray tinge. Coarse flour is darker than smooth flour, moist - darker than dry (water content should not exceed 15 percent). Pieces of bran are visible in wholemeal flours. To check that the flour is not too moist, squeeze a handful of flour. Dry - that is, as it should be - it disintegrates quickly when you open your hand, while when wet, it keeps its shape. Good flour is delicate to the touch, experts say that it crunches slightly when kneading.

Wheat flour: types

Before choosing wheat flour, carefully study the label. It should contain the trade name and type of wheat flour, name and address of the producer, country of origin, production batch, shelf life, storage conditions and nutritional value (obligatory from December 13, 2016). The sale includes flours produced according to factory specifications, for example: Wrocławska 500, Poznańska 500, Domowa 500, Szymanowska 480, Mąka Królowa Kuchni 390 - they are used in home cooking similarly to Luksusowa 550 flour. Bread flour 850 gives bread a slightly darker color than light wheat flour, it works well when baking pizza dough. Ziarnista Krupczatka 500 is excellentfor shortbread, puff, steamed doughs, cakes and pies with lots of eggs and fat, and is irreplaceable as a topping for rolling out the dough.

Self-rising flour has also appeared on store shelves. Contains sodium diphosphate and sodium carbonate, so you no longer need to add baking powder. Suitable for cakes, muffins, pancakes, sponge cakes, pies, pancakes, waffles.

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Worth knowing

Italian flour 00

A unique type of wheat flour is the original Italian 00. It is obtained from the very center of the grain of wheat grown in Italy. It is intended for pizza, but is also suitable for other Mediterranean pastries (foccacia, bread). It is lighter and finer than other flours, making the pizza dough very delicate and the bread light and soft. Contains 10 percent protein and 26 percent gluten (the high gluten content gives the dough elasticity). However, this type of wheat flour does not contain valuable minerals and fiber.

Bread mixes made of wheat flour

Traditional bread consists of flour, leaven, water, s alt and does not need any additives. You must read the label carefully. The shorter the ingredients list, the better. Some ready-made flour mixtures contain enhancers (eg E 300, i.e. ascorbic acid enhancing the properties of gluten, emulsifiers that give a smooth texture, enzymes that break down starch, improving yeast fermentation, leavers). It is best to mix the flours according to your preferences (after a few tries it will work out perfectly), remembering that wheat, rye and mixed bread can be dark and light.

Wheat flour: application

The basis for determining the type of flour is the ash content (mineral s alts), ie what remains after burning it at a very high temperature (approx. 950 ° C) - in grams per 100 kg of dry substance. As the mineral s alts are mainly present in the grain cover, the greater the amount of ash means the greater the content of bran in the flour.

Type of wheat flour

Application
Tortowa 450(ash content up to 0.50 percent)Wheat flour with the lowest ash content, smooth, very light. For baking sponge cakes, sand cakes and coatings.
Luxurious 550(ash content: 0.51-0.58 percent)White flour with a shade of yellow, smooth, with a wide range of applications.For baking yeast, French, steamed cakes, donuts, rolls, baguettes, challahs, strudels and butter croissants, as well as semi-French bread. It can be used to make dough for dumplings, pasta, noodles, and pizza. It is suitable for thickening soups and sauces.
Bułkowa 650(ash content: 0.59-0.69 percent)White flour with a shade of yellow, smooth, good for various types of "heavier" baking - bread, rolls, gingerbread, honey.
Chlebowa 750(ash content: 0.70-0.78 percent)White flour with a shade of yellow, smooth, mainly for baking wheat and mixed bread.
Type 1050(ash content: 0.79-1.20 percent)White flour with a shade of yellow, smooth, perfect for baking bread, rolls, cakes, pizza and for thickening sauces, roux.
Sitkowa 1400(ash content: 1.21-1.60 percent)Coarse-mill light gray flour with bran particles, used for baking sieve bread.
Graham 1,850(ash content 1.61-2 percent)Coarse light gray flour with bran particles, finer than wholemeal, for graham bread.
Wholemeal 2000(bread crumb, ash content up to 2 percent)Light gray flour, produced by grinding whole grains without purification, with visible bran. Excellent for traditional sourdough wholemeal bread, wholemeal pasta. It is worth mixing it with other flours.

Wheat flour: the darker, the he althier

The nutritional value of wheat flour depends on the amount of flour obtained from 100 kg of grain. The more it is, the more bran it contains, and thus it is richer in nutrients. Light flour loses some vitamins and minerals during production (fiber losses are two or three times). The higher the type of flour, the smaller the losses. 100 g of wheat flour provides 340-360 kcal. However, flour products swell four times during cooking, thus "losing" calories. Light wheat flour is mainly a source ofcarbohydrates(77 percent), it provides some fiber (2.4 percent), calcium, iron. White flours, derived from the center of the endosperm, contain more starch than wholemeal flours. Wheat flour is 10-12 percent protein. Among the various types of protein, the most important are those which, when combined with water, create gluten, which gives the dough a spatial structure (wheat flour has no less than 25 percent gluten, the exception is cake flour, where the gluten content should not exceed 18 percent). Flexible gluten makesthe dough rises and does not crumble after baking. It is thanks to him that long-kneaded yeast doughs can be shaped (braiding plaits or forming rolls). Higher types of flours (750-2000) contain more fiber - 5.6-8.9 percent (regulates the functioning of the intestines, hinders the absorption of fat, gives a feeling of satiety, helps with constipation and digestive problems). They are also a good source of B, C, E vitamins and carotene ( provitamin A ). They contain iron, phosphorus, magnesium, zinc and calcium. Whole grain products are he althier but more difficult to digest, so they are not recommended for people on a slightly digestible diet.

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Semolina - perfect flour for pasta

Semolina is a coarse wheat flour (porridge) made of hard wheat, yellow, used to produce the best quality pasta. It is suitable for baking bread, cakes, s alty snacks, pizza. It contains more gluten (more than 30 percent), protein (13-14 percent) and ash (about 0.9 percent) than ordinary wheat flour, and thus more fiber (7 percent), minerals and B vitamins: B1 , B2, B5, B6, and folic acid. The gluten derived from it is more stretchy than that of ordinary wheat. It contains fewer calories (339 kcal / 100 g) and starch (71.1 g / 100 g) than plain wheat flour (75.9 g / 100 g). It contains lutein, which protects against free radicals and supports eyesight. After cooking, semolina pasta is amber in color, does not stick together, is firm, hard, easily digestible and retains its nutritional value (less ingredients are transferred to the water during cooking).

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