Home › Flour Mixtures › Flour Mixtures: Wheat

Flour Mixtures: Wheat

As the bran contained in the Graham flour and whole wheat flour is mostly cellulose which cannot be digested by the human digestive system, these flours do not contain as much nourishment as is found in white flour. They do contain more mineral matter, however, and the cellulose is useful for persons who take little exercise because it increases the action of the intestines. Wheat Grain White Fl.

Graham Fl. Whole Wheat Fl.

Water 10.05 12.80 11.30 11.40 Protein 11.09 10.80 13.30 13.80 Fat 2.10 1.10 2.20 1.90 Starch 71.90 74.6 69.50 71.00 Fiber 1.80 .20 1.80 .90 Experiment. Put two tablespoonfuls of flour in a piece of cheesecloth and tie in the form of a bag, then squeeze the bag in a bowl of cool water until the starch is washed out of the flour. Untie the cheesecloth and examine the tough, rubber-like substance left in the bag. It is gluten, the form of protein found in wheat. Put this ball of gluten on a plate in the oven. As the water turns to steam and expands the gluten stretches like rubber. If baked long enough the thin wall of gluten becomes hard and holds its shape. This is what happens when our flour mixtures are put into the oven to bake. Try the same experiment with cornmeal. There is no gluten in corn.

Wheat Flour.

Patent wheat flour is usually used for all flour mixtures except in bread making, where we sometimes use flour made from rye or other grains.

There are two kinds of wheat, winter wheat and spring wheat. Winter wheat is planted in the fall and harvested in the early summer. This is a soft wheat and the flour contains a large per cent of starch. It is used for cakes, pastry, etc. Spring wheat is planted in the spring and harvested in the fall. The grains are hard and the flour contains less starch and more gluten (the protein in wheat) than does the winter wheat. The flour made from spring wheat is called bread flour.

Frequently the two kinds of wheat are blended so as to produce a flour that will be suitable for either bread or pastry. Macaroni flour is wheat flour especially rich in gluten. Batters.

A batter is a mixture of flour and liquid thin enough to be beaten with a spoon, the word batter meaning to beat. If the mixture is so stiff that it can be handled upon a molding board, it is called a dough.

Kinds of batters.

Batters are divided according to their consistency or thickness into pour batters, stiff drop batters and soft drop batters. If a batter is so thin that it will pour in a steady stream from the spoon it is called a pour batter; if it is thick enough to drop in a large lump, it is a stiff drop batter and if it is so soft that it will start to pour from the spoon and then drop in a soft lump, it is called a soft drop batter.

Different kinds of flour vary so much that it is impossible to tell the exact amount of liquid that will be needed in any given mixture. It will be necessary to know the correct consistency or thickness of the batter and add liquid to the mixture until it is of the proper consistency. In general the proportion of liquid to flour is:

Pour batter 1 C. liquid to-1 C. flour.

Soft drop batter C. liquid to 1 C. flour.

Stiff drop batter C. liquid to 1 C. flour.

Other Ingredients Contained in Flour Mixtures.

A mixture consisting only of flour and milk or water would be tough, heavy and tasteless when baked. It is therefore necessary to add other ingredients to have a food that is palatable and digestible.

Salt is added to take away the "flat" taste; fat (commonly called shortening) in the form of butter, lard, dripping, suet, etc., is used to make the cooked food more tender. Baking powder, or soda with sour milk or molasses, or air beaten into eggs will make the food lighter and more porous, therefore more digestible. These additions make a change in the batter as well as in the taste and texture of the food after it is cooked. Shortening will tend to make the batter thinner and if a large amount of shortening is used, less liquid will be needed. Eggs make a batter thinner but the cooked food will be stiffer and tougher because the heat of the oven hardens and toughens the albumin in the egg. Shortening added to the mixture will overcome this toughness. A batter that contains many eggs and little fat should be baked at a very low temperature. In changing a recipe, if fewer eggs are used, the amount of flour should be increased or the amount of liquid decreased. It would be better to decrease the amount of liquid as recipes are usually written with the baking powder, flavoring, etc., calculated to the amount of flour, therefore any change in the amount of flour would make a change in the other ingredients necessary. Methods of Mixing.

There are three methods of putting flour mixtures together, called the batter method, the dough method and the cake method. The amount of shortening used and the texture desired in the finished product decides which process shall be used. Batter Method of Mixing. 1. Mix and sift the dry materials. (If sifted two or three times, more air will be mixed with the dry materials and the food will be lighter.) If granulated sugar is used it can be stirred into the other dry materials after sifting. 2. Add beaten egg to half the milk and stir into the dry materials. 3. Add enough more milk to make the batter the desired consistency.. 4. Add the melted butter, beat well and cook immediately. If allowed to stand it will not be so light.

Flour should always be sifted before it is measured. It should then be put lightly into the cup with a spoon and leveled off with a knife. Do not shake or rap the cup to level it or the flour will pack and you will have more than a cupful. In measuring part of a cupful, fill the measuring cup a little above the right mark in the cup and then lift out the flour to the rim with a spoon. If only 4 C. is needed it will be quicker and more accurate to measure it by tablespoonfuls.

Baking.

Experience is the only safe guide to follow in telling when an oven is the right temperature. It will be some help until one has become experienced to tell the heat of the oven by testing it with the bare hand. If you can hold the hand in the oven until you can count thirty you have a hot oven. If the hand must be taken out before you have counted thirty it is too hot, if you can hold it longer it is not hot enough. For moderate oven you should be able to hold the hand there until you can count forty and for a slow oven you should be able to count forty-five. If the oven is too hot even with the fire turned low, open the oven door slightly or set a pan of cold water into the oven. In baking batter mixtures the length of time for cooking can be divided into fourths. At the end of the first quarter the mixture should begin to rise; at the end of the second quarter it should continue to rise, but not brown; the end of the third quarter should find it well risen and beginning to brown, and at the end of the fourth quarter if the muffin or cake is done, it will have pulled away from the side of the pan; and if pressed lightly on top with the finger it will feel firm and will spring back into place. A clean straw, knitting needle or wooden toothpick put into the center of the muffin will come out clean if the muffin is done.

If the oven is too hot the muffin or cake will bake on top before it has risen enough, then in its effort to rise it will burst through the crust that has formed and will be rough on top. If there are large holes in the muffins after they are baked it is because the oven was too hot, the mixture was too thin or there was too much baking powder in it.