Wheat Flour - The Best For Everything

Present in many Italian recipes, a must for pasta, bread and baked goods, Wheat flour is one of the ingredients ever present in Italian cooking.

It contains two proteins, gliadin and glutenin, which when in contact with water form gluten, a complex protein, which allows to have a compact and elastic dough that encourages the leavening.

There are people who suffer from celiac disease and thus can not consume any food containing wheat flour or other flours containing this protein.


Pastry But Good

A second part of the wheat which is milled different types of flour can be obtained, used for different purposes. First of all the pastry flour: this is the most valuable type and white because obtained from most tender part and internal of the grain of wheat.

It contains no durum or bran, is low in minerals, vitamins and fiber, but it has almost exclusively starch and protein. Perfect in cooking, it is used for fresh pasta or egg noodles, as a thickener and to make cakes, biscuits and sweets in general.

It can be combined with other flours for the production of baked goods such as cookies. The mixture of wholemeal flour and Wheat flour is ideal for making Italian "Pizza rustica".

Different Kinds of Flours

To know and use the right flour for each type of preparation in cooking is the precondition to ensure the success of a dish. First, it's useful to make a difference between the durum wheat flour , derived from durum wheat, very coarse and yellow amber, used for bread, pasta, sweets, and the flour obtained from wheat from which derive different variants:

• Flour 0, which contains very little protein and starch, Flour 1 has more gluten than pastry flour. Used for bread.
• Flour 1 and flour 2: less white because they are richer of bran, used for bread and pizza.
• Whole wheat flour, produced by grinding whole of the germ, including the outer bran. It 's the most complete flour from a nutritional point and it's easy to digest. It's used for bread and brioches.
• Bread flour, derived from durum wheat. It is mainly used for the preparation of bread and pasta.
• Manitoba flour, obtained from wheat, from the homonymous province of Canada in which it was originally cultivated, suitable for used for much more compact doughs and French baguette, Panettone, Pandoro, Easter dove and pizza.

Then there are also special flours for those who are intolerant to wheat flour such as corn flour, suitable for the preparation of various dishes such as bread and the typical Italian "polenta", Kamut flour used in traditional products such as pasta (the grain of Kamut is also used in soups and sauces) and finally the buckwheat flour, gray and bitter, used for various preparations such as "Pizzoccheri", a type of pasta native to North of Italy.


Home - Bread Flour - Wheat Flour