molecules. Continued kneading lines the molecules up into parallel sheets that trap the carbon

dioxide, and the air holes you see in your baked bread were all these trapped bubbles. When these

sheets develop to the maximum extent, the dough changes its appearance from a gooey, sticky mass

to a smooth, elastic, somewhat stiff ball that holds its shape. Fully developed dough remembers its

former shape. When you gently dent it with a finger, it slowly springs back like a balloon. (Some

bakers say that a developed dough should feel like your earlobes.)

The flour you use to make bread must have high enough protein content to develop gluten

sheets in the dough. Flours range from soft to hard, terms that describe the starch content. The more

the starch, the less the protein. Soft flours are high in starch, low in protein, hard flours the opposite.

For bread you want the high-protein hard flours. For general baking purposes, flour mills blend

various types of flours to produce a single flour suitable for most household cooking and baking

purposes. This compromise product is our all-purpose flour. You can use it for bread baking but you

don’t get the best, highest-rising breads with it.

Commercial bakers are careful to use the optimum flour for every type of baking, but home

bakers have less choice available. Bread flour is now on most grocery store shelves, but should you

not have it in your community, you have a couple of options. Ask at the local bakery if they will

order an extra 50-pound bag of hard-wheat bread flour the next time they re-order their supply. If

the baker is honest, the price is very reasonable, and 50 pounds (23 kg) of flour produces 45 to 50

loaves of bread. Baking two loaves at a time, that is not an unreasonable amount to store. Flour has

a long shelflife if you keep it well covered in bins in a fairly cool, dry place, out of reach of tiny

bugs and insects.

Your other choice is to buy all-purpose flour and add gluten flour to up the protein content.

Gluten flour is wheat flour from which they remove most of the starch, leaving behind a

concentration of gluten proteins. You can often find it in bulk at health and natural food stores. It is

costly but you need very little to make a good bread flour blend (5 percent gluten and 95 percent all-

purpose flour). A loaf that calls for 3 cups of flour needs only 3 tablespoons of gluten flour.

One of the baking tests I conducted for this chapter was baking three identical breads with

three different flours: hard-wheat bread flour, all-purpose flour and all-purpose flour with 5 percent

gluten flour. All three breads tasted the same, but the difference in the loaves was clearly visible.

The loaf I made with bread flour rose the most and held its shape the best when baking free-

form on a baking sheet. The loaf I made with all-purpose flour plus gluten flour held its shape less

well. It flattened a little and had a somewhat heavier texture. The all-purpose flour loaf flattened

clearly during the last rising and baking, and the air holes were much finer than in the other two

loaves.

Modern flours need no sifting before mixing them into bread dough. You can measure flour

directly from the bin to the mixing bowl or on your work surface. It is always surprising to see in a

new cookbook that the author still starts bread baking with the familiar, "sift dry ingredients into a

bowl." Sifting is still a good idea if you have several dry ingredients that need mixing, as in quick

breads. For yeast breads with few ingredients, forget about sifting.

Another misconception is exact measurements. A reasonable accuracy is fine, but you don't

need to draw a knife over the cup of flour. Yeast, salt and flavorings need to be exact in

measurement. You don't need to be quite so careful with the flour and water.

Other kinds of flour

Besides our basic, standard degerminated white flour, whole wheat and rye flours are the

Serious Kitchen Play