Skip to page navigation Skip to site menu

Four Basic Streams of Edible Flour

  

  • Top patent flour: This stream is composed of only the purest and most highly refined streams from the mill. It is low in ash and approximately 50% of the flour is extracted. The term ash indicates the mineral content (e.g., phosphorus) of the flour. When flour is burned, all that is left is the burned mineral elements that constitute ash.
  • Second patent flour: This flour is composed of streams with an intermediate degree of refinement. It has an average ash content of approximately 0.45% and represents about 35% of the total flour.
  • First clear flour: This stream contains the balance of the flour that possesses baking properties, and is high in ash and protein content. It is usually about 15% of the total flour.
  • Second clear flour: This grade contains the poorest flour streams. It is very high in ash (approximately 0.75%), and has little or no baking quality. It is about 2% of the total flour.
  • Note: Feed streams. The balance of the streams from the mill classed as feed. Feeds marketed as bran, wheat shorts, flour middling, and wheat germ.
Hands with splash of white flour and black background.

All-Purpose Flour

General purpose or home use flours are usually a blend of hard spring wheats that are lower in protein (gluten) content than bread flours. They are top patent flours and contain sufficient protein to make good yeast breads, yet not too much for good quick breads, cakes, and cookies

Bread Flour

Bread flour is milled from blends of hard spring and hard winter wheats. They average about 13% protein and are slightly granular to the touch. This type of flour is sold to bakers because it makes excellent bread with bakery equipment, but has too much protein for home use. It is also called strong flour or hard flour and is second patent flour.

Cake Flour

Cake flour is milled from soft winter wheats. The protein content is about 7% and the granulation is so uniform and fine that the flour feels satiny. An exception is a high-protein cake flour formulated especially
for fruited pound cakes (to prevent the fruit from sinking).

Pastry Flour

Pastry flour is made from either hard or soft wheat, but more often from soft. It is low in protein and is finely milled, but not as fine as cake flour. It is unsuitable for yeast breads but ideal for cakes, pastries, cookies, and quick breads.

Self-Rising Flour

Self-rising flour has leavening and salt added to it in controlled amounts at the mill.

Whole Wheat Flour

Whole-wheat flour contains all the natural parts of the wheat kernel up to 95% of the total weight of the wheat. It contains more protein than all-purpose flour and produces heavier products because of the bran particles.

Semolina

Semolina is the granular product consisting of small fragments of the endosperm of the durum wheat kernel. (The equivalent particles from other hard wheat called farina.) The most common form of semolina available commercially is the breakfast cereal Cream of Wheat.