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‘Oils ain’t oils’… Well, my friends, flours ain’t flours!
Cake flour is for cakes, so they are soft and crumbly whereas bread flour is for bread, making it crunchy and chewy. Even though they look the same coming out of the packet, they yield very different results. If you’ve ever tried making one with the other, you will know, first hand, it’s not worth the effort. A chewy cake is about as exciting as a crumbling sourdough!
On the same note, labels ain’t labels either. In Australia, what is bread flour to one company, is not to another. This will also vary across the globe. What is labelled ‘bread flour’ in Australia, may be labelled ‘all-purpose’ in Canada! So you need to know how to ignore the marketing and work out for yourself what the flour is suitable for. You won’t even need to open the packet.
The key is in reading the nutrition label. From this one little piece of mandatory information, you can identify what the flour is suitable for – cakes, all-purpose or bread making whether you are in Australia or abroad.
WHAT IS STRONG BREAD FLOUR?
Apart from the type of grain used, such as rye, wheat or spelt, the biggest difference between various types of flour is the level of protein in it which affect the gluten. Gluten is the elastic band of baking and determines how texture and structure is formed. The strands can be soft and short in items like cake, or strong and stretchy, like in sourdough bread. Hence why flours are often described as soft or hard (strong) flour.
Low protein flours are soft because they have less gluten and vice versa, high protein flours contain more of this stretchy stuff, making them a strong flour.
So which do you think is more suitable for bread making?
If you said “Ummm… the high-protein flour, so the elastic band of gluten is more stretchy??” You would be 100% correct! This is strong bread flour.
SO, WHAT DOES THAT LOOK LIKE WHEN IT COMES TO BREAD FLOUR IN AUSTRALIA?
Exactly the same as it world-wide. The protein qualities for different baking needs don’t change depending on where you live. What does change is the labelling. In some instances, the labelling doesn’t reflect the true qualities of the flour but is defined by the company labelling it. With bread flour isn’t often based on its suitability with yeast and a bread machine, not homemade sourdough bread.
A QUICK LOOK AT PROTEIN CONTENT IN FLOUR
Here, I will teach you how to choose flour based on what you’re making, and not what’s labelled on the packet.
Best protein levels in flour for:
Cakes and pastries: LOW protein (under 8%)
General baking: MEDIUM protein (9-12%)
Breads: HIGH protein (13+%)
You would think then, all flour would be labelled like this:
8% (and under) Protein: ‘Cakes and pastries flour’
9-12% Protein: ‘All-purpose flour’
13%+ Protein: ‘Bread flour‘
However, this is not the case. This is what differs around the world and, why some bread flours – as labelled – in Australia, are not true bread flours. I have seen protein levels vary from 8% to 14% with the product baring ‘Bread Flour’ on the packet.
Even worse are bread mixes. They are not ‘worse’ for making yeasted bread, no, they can make some fantatic bread, but bread mixes in Australia often use flours at the low end of protein levels (8%) and compensate by adding bread enhancers to the mix. The protein content on the nutritional table also shows the protein level for the entire mix, not just the flour, so it includes seeds etc which will boost the reading and protein level for you, but won’t be accessible to the sourdough cultures which need it.
Cake flour is usually labelled as cake flour but it’s worth checking the nutritional panel on the side of the packet if you’re wanting a true cake flour. You may find it’s actually all-purpose flour labelled as cake flour for marketing purposes, aiming to reach the home baker. For cake flour look for the protein content be around 8% or less. This is 8g per 100g, or 80g per 1kg.
All-purpose flour is designed to be a good all-rounder and is often a 50/50 mix of low and high protein flours (soft and strong). All-purpose flour does not include the wheat germ, which contains oil, so this flour generally has a longer shelf life than say, wholemeal. Again, this makes it more suitable for general baking. Anything labelled all-purpose in Australia, generally is all-purpose flour. It is great for general use and you may not need to check the protein content as it won’t matter for general uses. The protein content should be between 9-12%.
This brings us to…
BREAD FLOUR
In Australia, not everything labelled bread flour is, and some flours that are, aren’t labelled. In Canada, all-purpose flour has a fairly high protein level, so is suitable for making bread, however… the flour is labelled all-purpose. Confusing hunh? To make it easy – you can’t judge a flour by the labelling culture. You need to read the nutritional content and work out the protein level.
Bread flour has more protein content than all the other flours, 13%+. This is how you know the flour is a bread flour.
True bread flour is made of ‘hard’ wheat, meaning it has more gluten, that elastic band of baking which gives you a strong stretchy structure, puffing your bread high and wide, while still holding it’s shape.
If you use cake flour or all-purpose to make bread, your loaf will be floppy and dense. It won’t have the strength required to rise (and stay full-bodied), no matter whether you bake that loaf in Australia, Austria or Uganda. Or whether the flour was called ‘bread flour’ on the packet.
For true bread flour, look for 13%+ protein which is 13g per 100g, or 130g per 1kg. The flour could be wheat, rye, wholemeal, spelt or other. It can also be a blend of these flours. The method is the same. Check the nutritional panel for the protein level.
Some flours are naturally high in protein,, spelt being a good example.
11-12% protein is the highest protein level in flour offered by major supermarkets in Australia and this is often labelled ‘bread flour’. I have tried all of them, to offer them as viable options and make it easy for you to get your hands on some. Some brands came out better than others in this low protein range. Read about them here. For true bread flour, you’re going to have to visit more specialised stores like health food, wholefoods, bread making stores and online retailers.
In my post What Bread Flour To Buy and Where To Get It In Australia, I list the bread flours that I have used extensively in making sourdough bread and where to get them. Included in the list are some decent results from supermarket brands even though the protein content is lacking in these well labelled and well-meaning bread flours. These flours will make an OK loaf of sourdough, whilst being utterly suitable for also making yeasted bread.
EXAMPLE: NUTRITIONAL TABLE SHOWING PROTEIN CONTENT
*13g of protein per 100g of flour is 13%
The protein content will give away whether or not the flour is suitable for making bread, even when the name on the packet says ‘Bread Flour’.
WHERE TO BUY BREAD FLOUR IN AUSTRALIA
For a comprehensive list of what I’ve used, including spelt, wholemeal, cheap and expensive brands as well as notes about each one see: What bread flour to buy and where to get it in Australia
But in short, my #1 go-to flour is Organic Premium Bakers White Flour (5kg) by Demeter Farm Mill. It’s Australian grown, organic, home-delivered (free for Prime members) and makes 10 loaves of super tasty artisan sourdough bread.
If Organic Premium Bakers Flour is out of stock try this Organic White Bakers Flour (5kg) by the same company. It also makes 10 loaves. Though slightly less protein than the Premium version (above) with 12.5% protein, is also Australian grown, organic, home-delivered and produces a super tasty, resilient loaf of artisan sourdough bread.
Defiance White Bakers Flour (5kg) from Woolworths would be my other go-to flour as I can throw it in the trolley when I’m low on Demeter Farm Mill. Defiance also makes a great loaf. The occasional Coles store may stock Defiance White Bakers flour also. However, in my experience, it can be harder to find proper bread flour at Coles but if it’a sll you have you can boost any basic bread flour with Vital Wheat Gluten. See the next section on adding it to bread flour 👇
MAKE YOUR OWN (OR BOOST) BREAD FLOUR WITH VITAL WHEAT GLUTEN
Vital Wheat Gluten can transform inferior flour into something fairly magical. I have been using it to boost bread flours that are at the lower end of the protein scale with noticeable improvement. A little goes a long way! So if you are limited in with options for bread flour. not all is lost. You can make your own, with whatever flour you have available.
Follow this guide to match the amount of Vital Wheat Gluten you need for the flour you are using. See: How to add Vital Wheat Gluten to sourdough bread
Where to get VItal Wheat Gluten
Australia: I’ve found the cheapest online is from Amazon AU or try health food stores.
All other countries also try Amazon worldwide or your local health food store.
MAKE SOURDOUGH BREAD THE EASY WAY
If you’re new to sourdough or bread making and are looking for an easy way to dip your toe in the water of artisan baking without the blood sweat and tears of the initial learning curve, you might like to try our unique no-knead sourdough process. It’s designed for the first loaf of sourdough to work for even the greatest novice. One proviso – you need a viable sourdough starter.
Use your own sourdough starter and follow the traditional recipe or low-maintenance (6-week feeding cycle).
If you don’t have a sourdough starter or are having trouble with it, just buy one. I have two options, based on how much effort you want to put in. Purchasing a sourdough starter is equally authentic and will shave weeks (and even months) off the maturing process and spare you from all the hassles that come with troubleshooting the variables! It took me 18 months and dozens of failed loaves to get this ship sailing! It’s worth it. Trust me. Sail from the start. I’ve put a lot of work into the method and the sourdough starter – purely so you don’t have to. And because this is all about Beautiful Living Made Easy, here’s the beautiful catch – with this one you don’t have to make or upkeep a sourdough starter.
If you never want to upkeep a sourdough starter you could also try Pantry sourdough starter.
How can I make sourdough without keeping a sourdough starter?
I turn my 14-year-old sourdough starter into dormant sourdough flakes. You keep the flakes in your cupboard and use 5g to grow an (almost) instant sourdough starter when you want to bake. It takes 2-3 days depending on temperature and roughly 2 minutes of handling. Pantry Sourdough Starter is a sourdough starter that’s always on-hand, without regular feeding, trial or error. I am passionate that anyone, anywhere should be able to make sourdough bread easily.
All my processes and sourdough starters make the same authentic loaf of homemade sourdough bread (and pizza!) that so many home bakers are trying to master at the moment. There’s no course to take, no baker’s yeast to add, no bread machine to own, no experience to have! It really is easy Sourdough.
Related Articles:
The Big Deal About Flour and Sourdough bread
Bread Flour Store – Made Easy
Make Your Own Bread Mix
