Flour is a powdery substance made from ground wheat. According to the amount of protein content in the flour, it can be categorized into high-gluten flour, medium-gluten flour, low-gluten flour and gluten-free flour.

High-gluten flour: darker in color, more active and smooth itself, not easy to form a ball; more suitable for bread, as well as part of the shortcrust pastry type of shortening snacks, such as Danish pastry. In pastry, it is mostly used in muffins (lasagna) and cream hollow cake (puff). In cakes, it is limited to high-ingredient fruit cakes.

Medium gluten flour: milky white in color, between high and low flour, semi-loose in texture; generally used in Chinese dim sum, such as buns, steamed bread, noodles, etc. (Note: Commercially available gluten-free flour is not used in the production of bread. (Note: the general market without special instructions of the flour, can be regarded as gluten flour use. And this kind of flour package will generally be marked on the top, suitable for making buns, dumplings, steamed bread, noodles)

Low gluten flour: white in color, easy to form a ball with the hands; low gluten flour protein content of an average of 8.5%, low protein content, gluten is also less, so gluten is also weak, is more suitable for cakes, muffins, cookies, as well as tart crusts and other pastry need to be fluffy and crunchy texture.

Extended Information:

Flour Grades:

From the grades, we can further categorize the flour into various grades such as special flour, first grade flour, second grade flour, etc.

Flour Classification Basis:

The more the flour is milled near the center of the grain, the higher the grade; with the increase in the amount of flour mixed into the flour milled near the outer skin, the lower the grade.

The grade of flour is also directly related to the content of minerals (ash) in the husk and germ of wheat grains, the higher the content of minerals, the lower the grade of flour; on the contrary, the lower the content, the higher the grade of flour. If the pursuit of bread has the unique flavor of the flour, low-grade flour in turn than the high grade of flour is more appropriate, such as healthy whole-wheat bread is made from wheat containing bran milled whole-wheat flour.

In the case of flour in general, the amount of minerals in it will not have much effect on the nature of the bread it makes. However, if it contains a lot of minerals, the color of the flour is slightly gray, and the color of the bread made is naturally dark. Decades ago, the color of bread, if white, was a symbol of its delicious taste, but later, the flour is no longer bleached, and people are gradually more fond of the natural color and natural taste.

Currently on the domestic market there is another kind of flour is very common - self-rising flour (Self-rising Flour), the so-called self-rising flour, is pre-mixed with a certain proportion of salt and baking powder in the flour, and then packaged for sale. This is to make it easier for home use, eliminating the step of adding salt and baking powder.

But it is generally recommended that you use it because it is not a big deal to mix salt and baking powder into the flour; secondly, the baking powder in self-rising flour will lose its effectiveness to varying degrees after it has been stored for a certain period of time; thirdly, many pastries need salt when they are made, and there is already salt in the self-rising flour, so you have to be careful about whether you should add more salt and how much you should add. All these factors will affect the final quality of the pastry, so it is not recommended.

Reference:

Baidu Encyclopedia - Flour