All-Purpose Flour For Your Purpose

Perhaps the most confusion in my world of flour rides along with the many definitions of all-purpose flour.

But, before I launch into the different ways of defining and using AP Flour to your advantage, let me explain that, at Daisy, we are a roller mill. That means we extract the basic white flour that resides within each grain of wheat and we separate it, momentarily, from the hard outer coating of each grain.  That outer coating includes the bran, the germ, and the endosperm, all the hard brown flecks that we call the middlings.

After that grain completes its cycle through the mill, the middlings go down a path in which they are gently diminished into small particles. Then, those grains are  re-combined with an equal amount of the white flour into an aggregate called Daisy All-Purpose Flour.

From each wheat berry that goes through our mill, we produce  plain, unbleached White Flour (what’s inside) and Whole Wheat Flour (the whole berry after it has been separated, sifted and recombined). 
And so we sell both White Flour and Whole Wheat Flour for every one of the four varieties of flour that we produce:
Daisy Pastry Flour  made from soft, local wheat, averages 8% protein
Daisy Bread Flour made from hard wheat, averages 12-14% protein
Daisy All-Purpose Flour, a combination of Pastry and Bread Flour, our AP flour averages 11% protein
Daisy Spelt Flour, milled from an ancient grain similar to Pastry Flour, averages 8% protein. Spelt is a member of the wheat family but is technically another grain, so we package it as  Spelt Flour (the white part) and Whole Grain Spelt.

Understanding all this, I take advantage of the tin tie bags that we use for packaging our two-pounders. (Tin tie tops - metal tabs enclosed in paper -create a reusable and re-closable bag.)

You can buy Daisy All-Purpose Flour (White or Whole Wheat) that has been thoroughly sifted in our mill to integrate the pastry flour with the bread flour.

But perhaps you would like to mix your own flour, creating a blend with a different  ratio of soft and hard wheat.  For example, our ThinBread Recipe calls for a combination of soft Spelt Flour and hard Bread Flour. Every time I make it, I experiment with the ratio.  The bread flour creates a crisper cracker but the pastry or spelt flour gives a certain delicacy of flavor and softer rolling qualities, i.e. you can roll it very thin without cracking and breaking of the dough.

Knowing all this, if you like cooking as recreation, buy several small bags of different flours and experiment with the many different effects you get with different amounts  of soft /hard wheat & white/whole wheat flour.

Wikipedia says: Flour that does not have a leavening agent (typically baking powder) is called all-purpose or plain flour.

www.flour.com says: Whole-wheat flour usually can be substituted for part or all of the all-purpose flour in most recipes. If a recipe calls for two cups flour, try one cup all-purpose and one cup whole-wheat. When completely substituting whole-wheat for white, use 7/8 cup whole-wheat for one cup of white flour.
 

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