Flour is a common ingredient used to make bread, but some recipes may specifically call for bread flour to create the dish.
If you have never heard of bread flour before, you may be wondering what bread flour is. I did some digging, and here is what I discovered!
What Is Bread Flour?
Bread flour is a type of flour usually used to create bread, and bread flour is made from hard spring wheat that contains a lot of protein since protein is gluten. Since bread flour is high in gluten, bread flour offers more structure and elasticity needed for bread recipes that have yeast.
Do you want to learn what bread flour is used for, how much gluten bread flour has, and what you can substitute for bread flour? Keep reading!
What Is In Bread Flour?
While it will depend on the manufacturer, bread flour is normally made from hard spring wheat since hard spring wheat has more protein than hard winter wheat, which is used for all-purpose flour.
What Is Bread Flour Used For?
As you can guess from the name, bread flour is normally used for baking bread because bread flour contains a lot of protein, which offers elasticity and structure to yeasted bread.
Normally, the protein in bread flour often refers to gluten, and bread flour often contains around 10-13% protein, which is ideal for baking bread.
However, bread flour is not limited to traditional bread recipes since you can use bread flour to make cinnamon rolls, pretzels, and more.
Does Bread Flour Contain Gluten?
Bread flour does contain gluten because bread flour is often made from wheat, which contains gluten.
Moreover, the protein mentioned in bread flour often refers to gluten since gluten is a form of protein, so bread flour that is high in protein usually means that the bread flour has gluten.
Is Bread Flour The Same As Baker’s Flour?
Bread flour is the same as baker’s flour since they are merely different terms used to refer to the same thing, which is flour that is high in protein.
However, some baker’s flour may be made from specifically Canadian-grade wheat flour while bread flour may be made from any hard spring wheat.
How Much Protein Does Bread Flour Have?
How much protein bread flour contains will depend on the manufacturer of the bread flour, but bread flour usually contains around 12.7% protein.
As for protein such as protein found in beef, bread flour usually contains 3 grams of protein.
Is Bread Flour The Same Thing As Self-Rising Flour?
Bread flour is not the same as self-rising flour because they contain different ingredients and slightly different uses.
Generally, bread flour is simply flour that is high in gluten, which provides a lot of elasticity and structure needed for bread recipes.
On the other hand, self-rising flour is a mixture of salt, all-purpose flour, and baking soda to offer volume yet a soft texture for recipes, such as non-yeast bread and cakes.
Since bread flour and self-rising flour are not the same and have different uses, it is not ideal to substitute bread flour and self-rising flour for each other since the results will not be great.
For instance, if you were to use self-rising flour instead of bread flour for a bread loaf recipe, your bread will likely rise more than you would like and be crumbly and soft.
Additionally, if you were to use bread flour for a cake, you would get a very dense and tough cake, which is unideal for most cakes.
Is Bread Flour The Same As All-Purpose Flour?
Technically, bread flour is not the same as all-purpose flour even if they are both made from wheat because bread flour is made from hard spring wheat while all-purpose flour is made from hard spring wheat.
Moreover, all-purpose flour and bread flour do not have the same gluten content since all-purpose flour has 8-11% gluten while bread flour has 10-13% gluten.
Since all-purpose flour and bread flour have different levels of gluten, they will create different textures and structures in your recipes.
For instance, all-purpose flour tends to create softer and crumblier results than bread flour.
How Do You Make All-Purpose Flour Into Bread Flour?
If you do not have any bread flour, you can use slightly alter your all-purpose flour to make something similar to bread flour.
Firstly, take a cup of bread flour and remove 1 ½ teaspoon of the bread flour from the cup.
Next, add 1 ½ teaspoon of vital wheat gluten into the bread flour and whisk then sift the mixture to combine.
By adding the vital wheat gluten to the all-purpose flour, you will be increasing the gluten content of your all-purpose flour, making the all-purpose flour more suitable to create bread recipes.
What Can I Substitute For Bread Flour?
You can use all-purpose flour by itself to replace flour but expect a wetter dough and much less structure in your bread.
Additionally, a good alternative for bread flour is semolina flour since semolina flour is high in gluten and can be used instead of bread flour in an equal ratio.
However, semolina flour is not a perfect replacement for bread flour because semolina flour features a slightly nutty and sweet flavor, which may make it obvious that you used a different flour.
If you choose semolina flour instead of bread flour, try to pick finely ground semolina flour since semolina flour comes in different grinds.
Have a look at our related articles to find out what barley flour is, what banana flour is, and what bao flour is.
Conclusion
Bread flour is a type of flour made from hard spring wheat and is often used for creating bread recipes that have yeast, and bread flour may also be called baker’s flour.
Generally, most recipes for bread with yeast in them will call for bread flour because bread flour contains enough gluten to give the bread structure and elasticity.
However, you can make bread flour by mixing vital wheat gluten with all-purpose flour or by other types of flour like semolina flour.