Ever wondered when the recipes call for all purpose flour or plain flour, what does it exactly mean? Are these different types of flour? Well, no, there is no difference in these two terms. All-purpose flour is essentially the plain flour. The term all-purpose flour is commonly used in the U.S., whereas, plain flour is used in the United Kingdom and Australia.
It is the most versatile type of flour that gives so many different bakes used in home baking and commercial baking alike. There is no rising agent used in the plain flour or the all-purpose flour. It is the most commonly and widely used flour in the world.
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It Is Important To Know Your Flour
These days there are so many types of flour making it harder to know which flour to use with which types of bakes. Higher protein flour give give chewy texture and strong flour with raising agents are used for different types of baking recipes. The whole wheat flour or all-purpose flour is the most commonly used flour. Here on this blog you will find recipes ranging from Cakes to Muffins, Quick Breads to Breads, Cookies to Bars made using the plain flour.
What Is All-Purpose Flour or Plain Flour?
Plain flour is the most commonly used type of flour and versatile flour, known as pastry flour or cream flour as well.
When the plain flour or all-purpose flour goes into the refinement process, the germ and bran of white flour are removed which means the endosperm of the wheat kernel is taken off, which is then crushed into fine powder. During the milling process for all purpose flour the soft wheat and hard wheat are processed together. They are responsible for the gluten in the flour.
This flour has a low-gluten content and less protein as compared to other flours with high protein content. These qualities help to create flaky bakes such as pies and pastries. It also has lower protein content about 10 - 12 %, making it so versatile that it is suitable for most types of baking. The protein type also varies from brand to brand of the flour. In short, the wheat flour is also known as white flour or the all-purpose flour.
Plain flour is easily available from grocery stores in different countries.
The Name All-Purpose Flour
By now, we know that this kitchen staple ingredient has so many different purpose and can be used in such a variety of dishes in the kitchen. That's how it got the name All-Purpose Flour.
What Is Plain Flour Used For?
All-purpose flour of plain flour is made by grinding rye grains and has a neutral taste. The white flour is basically used to give structure to the majority of the bakes such as cakes, biscuits, scones, cookies, bread, pizza dough, pie crusts, quick breads and pastries etc. This flour gives the texture and shape to the bakes and giving us the finished products as consumed across the globe. Imagine if there was no flour, baking wouldn't be the same and the baked good wouldn't hold their shape and wouldn't give us the best results in terms of texture that we consume.
The plain flour is used in a number of bakes including biscuits, pastry, pancakes, cakes etc. Not only that it is used for baking but this flour is also used as a coating for meats and veggies and as thickening agent in sauces and different gravies and also in soups.
Different Types of Flour
There are so many different types of flours in the market ranging from wholemeal flour to grain flour, pizza flour to spelt flour, self rising flour to cake flour, bread flour to low protein content flour.
The main ingredient for a flour is wheat and wheat grains which are crushed to take the form of the flour suitable for a certain type of bakes. The different percentage of gluten and protein in a flour will make it different than the other flour. It also depends on the milling process and gluten development in a particular type of flour.
These flours are responsible to give finer texture to different recipes. For example every flour has gluten content but some has less and some has more. Ap flour has less gluten as compared to the bread flour.
- All-purpose flour: as the name suggests, this flour is used for a wide array of baking recipes.
- Bread Flour: has higher protein content (12 - 14%) and typically used to make yeast breads and dinner rolls etc (as the name suggests)
- Self-rising flour: mostly used to make cakes as it contains a leavening agent such as baking powder. It is also called as self-raising flour in some parts of the world.
- Pastry flour: is one of the lower protein flours mostly used to make delicate and flaky pies and pastries.
More Protein = More Gluten in Flour
By now we know that the amount of protein matters in any flour type. The high protein flour means the high gluten content as well. In other words it means that gluten will make the bake's texture stretchy.
Gluten is a key element in any type of flour as it is responsible to give elasticity and stretching to the dough. It will make the dough bubble up with gas. The gluten levels will make you use one type of flour over the other in a particular recipe.
It should also be noted that gluten is found in whole-wheat flour and whole grain flours and not in non-wheat flours such as almond flour or coconut flour.
Gluten is responsible to give shape to the bakes during the baking process. During the kneading or mixing process of baking recipes, gluten strands in the wheat are stretched out forming little small pockets that rise by the gases released by the leavening agent when exposed to heat during the baking process in the oven.
How To Store All-Purpose Flour
Store the all purpose flour in a cool and dry place. I usually save it in pantry or a cupboard. You can also take out the flour out of the packet and transfer it in a big airtight container and use from the container every time.
When stored properly your plain flour will work fine for up to one year easily.
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