Aricle about biscuit making and the South

[Mike Nolan]

My wife found this article on biscuit making, probably not a lot new there for most of us, but it does appear that the furor over the acquisition of White Lily has calmed down, though its availability hasn't increased as some had hoped.

See Biscuits and the South

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[Joan Simpson]

I use White Lily self rising for my biscuits and back when I was a little girl my mom liked one called Ballard's Flour.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hi... Finally reading this. Fascinating. Is it soft wheat flour our is it low gluten flour? Or is soft wheat flour automatically low gluten? What about pastry flour?

KAF pastry flour is 8% and their self-rising is 8.5%. Their self-rising is from "soft wheat" but I did not see anything for their pastry flour. I did not see the protein content on White Lily but it says it is from "soft winter wheat".

I remember winter wheat as one of the commodities reported on the "Top O' the Morning Show" when I was a kid. I do not remember if it was hard or soft.

What about white vs. red?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by aaronatthedoublef.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by aaronatthedoublef.

[Mike Nolan]

Low gluten and soft are essentially the same thing. The higher the gluten content, the 'harder' the flour is, and vice-versa.

The ratio of glutenin to gliadin also impacts how a flour performs, but that's not information you'll find on any flour bag I've ever seen. (Glutenin give dough strength, ie, elasticity, gliadin gives it flexibility, ie, extensibility.)

The ratio really depends on the specific types and varieties of wheat used. All-purpose flour is generally a mixture of several types of flour.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks Mike. So just based on protein content (glutenin vs. gliadin aside) pastry flour is soft like self-rising but doesn't have the leavening or salt.

[Mike Nolan]

Self rising doesn't necessarily mean soft flour, it just means that it already has the leavening added. I suspect that in practice most self rising flours are also soft flours, but I don't buy it so I'm not sure.

Most types of wheat have more glutenin than gliadin in them. There's more gliadin in durum wheat, but I'm not sure how much more.

[BakerAunt]

Barley appears to be a somewhat soft flour. I like substituting some into cakes and quick breads. I think it makes for a finer, softer texture.

[Mike Nolan]

Whole meal barley flour is similar to AP flour in protein content, around 10.5% protein, though I believe the type of gluten it has isn't as strong as the gluten in wheat. Flour made from pearled barley (removing the bran) is lower in protein and I think that would make it softer.

I think barley is a bit higher in diastatic enzymes than wheat, but maybe that's only after it has been malted.

I think barley has a sweeter taste than wheat.

[aaronatthedoublef]

The only time I've used self-rising flour I made my own and I used KAF bread flour so it had high gluten and was not soft. But that's what I had and since I only had the one use for self-rising I wasn't going to buy a five pound bag.

Never used barley. I'll have to try it sometime.

I use flax meal and chickpea flour which appear soft and are gluten free.

I also use corn meal in shortbread to soften it. My Scottish side of the family says they used to add rice flour back when they were kids. This was before I could find rice flour so I added some corn meal.

We've recently started having corn flour in addition to corn meal in a couple stores here. I am not sure of the difference between corn flour and fine corn meal. They look the same in the bags. I always thought corn flour was what the Brits called corn meal/

[Mike Nolan]

There are a lot of confusing and similar terms thrown around:

Corn flour, corn meal and corns tarch

Potato starch and potato flour (I don't think I've ever seen anything labeled as potato meal.)

To me, a 'meal' implies that it is a whole grain product, though there's no guarantee that's how a specific product defines it. But to me corn meal would include more of the outer layer and germ of the corn kernel than corn flour, although Google says the major difference is how finely it has been ground. Corn starch is more of a purified starch from the endosperm.

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