British vs. American Self-Rising Flour

[BakerAunt]

I found a recipe from the May 2004 issue of Bon Appetit for Scottish scones, which unlike the butter-laden ones with which we are familiar, do not use much fat, and in fact use vegetable oil. I do not have, nor do I want to buy, self-rising flour. I'm familiar with the substitution: 1 cup AP plus 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder plus 1/4 tsp. salt. However, the original recipe already includes baking powder in addition to the self-rising flour.

Here are the ingredients:

2 1/2 cups self-rising flour
1 Tbs. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 cup (or more) chilled whole milk
1 large egg
1 Tbs. vegetable oil

That would be rather a lot of baking powder with what I would add to compensate for not having self-rising flour.

I googled to find out if American and British baking powder is the same. They are--and I will assume they also were in 2004.

More googling reveled that the flour in American self-rising flour is usually the AP with which we are all familiar, but the flour in the British self-rising flour is what Americans would call pastry flour, so a self-rising flour made with pastry flour would requires 1 cup of pastry flour plus 2 tsp. baking powder

The people who worked on this Bon Appetit recipe would be long gone from the magazine, brushed aside when the younger, hipper crowd was brought in, so asking the magazine will not yield results--and for all I know, even if I had asked in 2004, I might not have gotten an answer. It was an issue focused on Scotland, so they may have taken the recipe directly from whatever restaurant they featured in that particular article. I never thought that their testing was all that rigorous.

I would like to have this kind of recipe in my repertoire, as I have to avoid those luscious American butter biscuits, not to mention scones made with butter.

I have both white and whole wheat pastry flour on hand, so I could use it.

I would think, however, that an additional 4 1/2 tsp. baking powder--added to the 2 tsp. already in the recipe--would produce a bitter flavor. Even if I assume American self-rising flour and use AP, that would still be an additional 3 1/4 plus 1/8 tsp. baking powder. That is still a lot.

Any thoughts on the baking powder in this recipe? The scones pictured are high-rising--cut from dough that is an inch thick before baking. There is an additional recipe for a savory cheese scone that looks equally delicious, but the same self-rising flour issue exists.

Spread the word

      

  

  

[cwcdesign]

BA, one thought is that they might have been using single acting baking powder. I can’t remember what I used for baking powder in Ireland. I may have taken some with me.
This article says it’s the same, but there is a comment about it not working the same
https://www.nigella.com/ask/baking-powder-from-us-to-uk

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by cwcdesign.

[BakerAunt]

Thank you, Cwcdesign. I also wondered about the double acting vs. single acting, but like you found information that it is the same in the U.S. and U.K. Maybe the self-rising flour has single acting baking powder in it?

[cwcdesign]

I just posted twice and it hasnt shown up. I’m confused but this one did I’ll try again. I posted links to the website for my favorite flour in Ireland. Doves Farm is an organic British company. Their plain flour has less protein than KAF AP. I usually used strong flour as it closer to KAF AP. I found the ingredient list for their self-raising, a recipe for homemade baking powder and one for making your own self-raising flour. The comparisons might help in your quest for your scones.
https://www.dovesfarm.co.uk/products/organic-self-raising-white-flour-x-1kg
https://www.dovesfarm.co.uk/recipes/how-to-make-your-own-baking-powder
https://www.dovesfarm.co.uk/recipes/how-to-make-self-raising-flour

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by cwcdesign.

[cwcdesign]

So I have now tried to post three times and not one shows up. The last one popped up bu then I edited it and it went away. It shows at the top that I posted

[cwcdesign]

I wonder if that is the case - let me see - I just went to the website for my favorite flour when we lived in Ireland the three links below are their self rising flour and it’s ingredients, how they recommend making baking powder and their recipe for making self-raising flour. Plain flour has less protein than KAF all purpose - I usually used strong flour which is higher in protein

https://www.dovesfarm.co.uk/products/organic-self-raising-white-flour-x-1kg
https://www.dovesfarm.co.uk/recipes/how-to-make-your-own-baking-powder
https://www.dovesfarm.co.uk/recipes/how-to-make-self-raising-flour

[cwcdesign]

I just posted a reply and must not have hit send. I went to the website of my favorite flour over there Doves Farm. I’ll repost the links to their self-raising flour, a recipe for baking powder, and a recipe they have for making your own self-raising flour. Plain flour has less protein than KAF AP, strong flour has a higher protein and that’s what I primarily used
https://www.dovesfarm.co.uk/products/organic-self-raising-white-flour-x-1kg
https://www.dovesfarm.co.uk/recipes/how-to-make-your-own-baking-powder
https://www.dovesfarm.co.uk/recipes/how-to-make-self-raising-flour

[Mike Nolan]

They were listed as 'pending' posts, not spam. Not sure what causes that.

[BakerAunt]

Cwcdesign--If you edit a post, be sure to uncheck the automatically checked box that says "keep a copy of this." Somehow, not doing so upsets the spam detector. I know this because it has snagged my posts more than once. I think it assumes that a spammer is trying to send repeated posts of the same stuff and reacts accordingly.

Now I shall look at the information you sent. Thanks!

[BakerAunt]

That's interesting that the homemade baking powder is corn flour, bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) and Vitamin C. I wish that they had put amounts down for it. There are also no amounts for the self-raising flour.

The mystery deepens.

[cwcdesign]

Thank you Mike. Now I have 3 posts that all say the same thing - Ha!

BA I didn’t see the amounts at first either - by my 3rd copying I found that information. There is a little grayish box on the right hand side that lists the ingredients - when you see it, you’ll know, but they didn’t make it easy

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by cwcdesign.

[BakerAunt]

I did some additional research by pulling out Shirley O. Corriher's Bake Wise and reading about self-rising flour--the American kind. She is an advocate for buying self-rising flour because the leavener is evenly distributed, which she says is hard to achieve. She mentions that self-rising flour is usually lower in protein than AP flour. She also notes that "commercial flour companies have more leaveners available to them than home cooks, and they have complete control over the time that bubbles are produced" (p. 57).

So, any substituting we do for self-rising flour will inevitably not equal what the self-rising flour would do.

I also looked at two examples she gave of recipes where the author apparently did not realize that self-rising flour contains leavening. Those recipes looked a lot like the one in Bon Appetit. Corriher gives the leavening guidelines as 1-1 1/4 tsp. baking powder per cup of flour in the recipe or 1/4 tsp. baking soda per cup of flour in the recipe. From what I can gather, self-rising flour also contains salt.

I decided, based on this information, that Bon Appetit made an error years ago and included leavening that should NOT have been included.

I baked the recipe for these Classic Scones using half barley flour and half General Mills AP. (I might try it with half WW pastry and half regular pastry flour next time.) My idea was to lower the protein of the flour and use half whole grain--and I like how barley flour performs in cakes. I used 2 tsp. baking powder and 1/4 tsp. baking soda, and 1/8 tsp. salt. I used buttermilk in place of the whole milk, and I used canola oil for the one Tbs. of vegetable oil.

These baked very nicely. They are tender but substantial--one was enough at dinner tonight with soup. I would bake this variation again. I plan to try a blend of whole wheat pastry flour and white pastry flour next time to see if I can create an additional variation.

Thank you to CWCdesign for helping to point me in the right direction as I was thinking about this recipe. It's nice to have other bakers and cooks to consult when I get stumped.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Years ago a Welsh friend was asking what she was doing wrong as none of her recipes were working. I gave her a bag of KAF self-rising and things started to work.

I made my own once, years ago using bread flour, baking powder, and salt. This was early days of the web and there was not much online. It worked for my purposes.

Self-rising flour seems to be making a comeback because people want simplicity. I've seen a spate of two-or-three ingredient recipes where one of them is self-rising flour. What is the shelf life of baking powder in a bag of flour?

[BakerAunt]

Of course, if those people are not baking frequently, then there will be major disappointment when they use expired self=rising flour.

Bags probably have an expiration date? From what Corriher says, self-rising flour does not use the same kind of baking powder that we do.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm not sure we've EVER had a bag of self-rising flour in the house, but we aren't big biscuit eaters.

[Author]

Posts