Because of the epidemic, many colleagues haven't returned to work, so we naturally have to work overtime. At lunch, a colleague said that his wife's interest in cooking soared during the epidemic. In the last half month, she has been studying pasta, steaming steamed buns and baking bread for a while, but she is inevitably a mouse.

It's not just my colleagues' home, because there are quite a few people who have lived at home for more than a month because of the epidemic. My best friend has asked me several times, saying that I don't know how to choose when I see many kinds of flour in the supermarket, such as high-gluten flour, low-gluten flour ... all kinds of flour, and I have a headache.

In this article, I specially summed up that mastering the classification and selection of flour has brought you a big step closer to the pasta expert. General flour is ground into powder after wheat bran is removed, and the main component is starch. We usually go to the supermarket to buy flour, and often see that the packaging bag says high gluten flour, medium gluten flour, low gluten flour, etc. What kind should we use to make steamed buns? What kind of bread should I use? How do we choose?

The "gluten" here is actually the protein in flour. High gluten flour is the flour with the highest protein content, followed by medium gluten flour and the lowest low gluten flour. When we buy flour, unless otherwise specified, it is medium gluten flour.

What is the relationship between the content of protein and the use of flour?

Protein has the property of water absorption. After mixing flour with water, with constant kneading and stretching, protein fully absorbs the water, expands and becomes bigger, forming a gluten network. Therefore, the content and composition of protein determines whether flour is gluten or not.

The tendon here can be understood as the elasticity of our skin lifting tendon. The more tendon the dough, the better the elasticity. On the contrary, it is like pulling a piece of paper and breaking it.

Below, from the perspective of gluten, introduce high gluten powder, medium gluten powder and low gluten powder respectively.

Low-gluten flour has the lowest content of protein in flour. Because of the low content of protein, the gluten of flour is the worst and the ductility is poor. If you knead it by hand, you can see that it is easy to agglomerate and its shape is stable.

Low-gluten flour is used to make pasta, such as biscuits, which require crisp and crisp finished products. If the wrong flour is used, the biscuits will not be crisp and slag, and the taste will be poor. Therefore, we must make sure that the flour is low-gluten flour when making cookies, otherwise the hard work will be in vain.

What if there is no low-gluten flour at home when you want to make cookies? You can mix 20%-25% corn starch with medium gluten flour or high gluten flour at home, so as to reduce the proportion of protein, and you can make cookies instead of low gluten flour.

High-gluten flour High-gluten flour has the highest content of protein in flour. Generally, this kind of flour is darker in color. Because of its high content of protein, it is more gluten and good in ductility, so it is not easy to form a ball after being squeezed hard by hand, and it will soon spread out.

High-gluten flour is suitable for making pasta with soft gluten, such as toast, so it must be made of high-gluten flour. Some people compare the toast made of high-gluten flour and low-gluten flour. Under the same method and formula, the toast made of high-gluten flour is torn open and presents a little fluffy and soft feeling.

Toast made of high gluten flour

The low-gluten powder is broken when it is broken, and the taste is not strong.

Medium-gluten flour is rarely seen in the market, but it is mostly written as "ordinary flour" or "wheat flour", which is all medium-gluten flour. The protein content of medium-gluten flour is between low-gluten flour and high-gluten flour, and it is the most widely used flour. We can use medium-gluten flour when making jiaozi and cakes.

Compared with high gluten flour and low gluten flour, medium gluten flour is made of whole wheat without wheat bran, so the price of medium gluten flour is cheaper than high gluten flour and low gluten flour in the same brand and grade.

In addition to the above three kinds, we often hear about a whole wheat flour, especially since weight loss has become a trend. Many people know that whole wheat flour is a weapon to reduce fat. What is the difference between whole wheat flour and the above three kinds of flour?

In fact, whole wheat flour, as its name implies, is ground with whole wheat, without any screening and separation, including wheat bran, so the color is the deepest, and even the finished product is dark brown.

Because wheat bran is rich in cellulose, pasta made of whole wheat flour is beneficial to digestion and has a stronger sense of fullness, so whole wheat pasta is the first choice for many fitness experts and beauty lovers.

However, due to the high wheat bran content and rough taste of whole wheat products, it is certain that they are not delicious. If you want to be healthy on the one hand and taste better on the other, it is suggested that you can add a proper amount of ordinary flour to whole wheat flour when you first come into contact with it, which can alleviate the rough taste.

The above is the knowledge you need to master when selecting flour. Knowing the differences of different flours and the attention to use, you will not take detours when studying pasta at home, which will make you an advanced chef.