All-Purpose Flour
This is a staple in everyone’s kitchen, and the most versatile, hence the name “all purpose. Although, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good for every purpose, but you can definitely produce pie crusts, flaky biscuits, and even some breads.
- Protein content: 10% - 18%
Bread flour
The reason why it’s called bread flour is because most breads need higher amounts of protein to produce a lot of gluten. Gluten is what gives bread it’s elasticity and its chew. It is the strongest of all the flours giving it the most structural support. This is the best to use for yeasted bread, where strong gluten is needed to contain the CO2 gases that are produced from the yeast as the dough rests from kneading. Compared to all-purpose, bread has a higher protein count.
- Protein content: 11% - 14%
Cake Flour
Cake is ideally used for, well, cakes! This will produce soft and tender cakes, because of its low protein content. Bread flour has an end product to be chewy because of its high protein content, whereas cake is supposed to be fluffy and tender. Gluten development is definitely not needed.
- Protein content: 6%-8%
Pastry Flour
Pastry flour has an even lower protein content than cake flour, it’s ideally used to produce flakiness and tenderness, making it perfect for pies, tarts and even cookies.
- Protein content: around 8%
Self-rising flour
In this flour, baking powder was added during the milling process and salt. Hence why it’s called self-rising because of the added leavening agents. It’s typically used in biscuits, cakes, pancakes and muffins. Self-rising flour can only keep in the pantry for 6 months, any longer, the baking powder slowly dies out.
- Protein content: around 8.5%
Whole-Wheat Flour
During the milling process, the germ, bran, and endosperm has been left intact on the wheat kernel. Whole wheat flour is supposed to be in high protein, but since the wheat germ and bran compromises the gluten formation. This is the reason whole wheat flours produce heavier and denser baked goods.
Gluten free flour
Most flours have proteins that help with gluten development, unfortunately some people are allergic to gluten (celiac disease) and can’t have baked goods that contain it. Thus, the birth of gluten-free flours, these are made with nuts, rice, and other starches. They are a little bit trickier to use, so just be patient.
Self-raising
I’m only putting this in here because when I was looking for recipes on the internet, I saw self-raising flours in all the European recipes I’ve found. And yes, there is a difference between self-raising and self rising. One is from the UK, and the other is here found here in the US. They are also different in ingredients, like I’ve mentioned above, self-rising has added baking powder and salt. Self-raising ONLY has added baking powder.
Italian Tipo 00 Flour
The name 00 refer to specifically Italian milled flour. There is a grading system, and this indicates how finely the flour has been milled and how much of the bran and germ has been removed. It is low in protein and is a very soft flour, mostly used for pasta and pizza.
- Protein content: 8%-10%