flour-msg - 1/12/08 Flours. Period flours. Approximating them with modern flours. Types of flours. Flour sources. chickpea flour. NOTE: See also these files: boulting-msg, bread-msg, breadmaking-msg, dumplings-msg, grains-msg, thickening-msg, leavening-msg, rice-msg, brd-manchets-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ From: "Philip W. Troy" <troy at asan.com> Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 12:50:45 -0400 Subject: Re: SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #51 Ray Caughlin wrote: > Question? Bleached flour during the Middle Ages? Would someone clarify. My > understanding is that white flour or (bleached) is modern. Good Period > bakers need to know these things! > Lord Mandrigal of Mu The concept of bleached flour is modern only in the sense that flour being produced on an industrial scale, for storage in warehouses, for sale God knows when, is modern. Bleached flour is produced by taking freshly ground flour and storing it in non-airtight sacks for a specific length of time ( I don't know how long). They don't add anything to it to bleach it. So, we have here another one of those "they COULD have had it" things. How often it actually occurred is anybody's guess. Adamantius From: "Philip W. Troy" <troy at asan.com> Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 13:24:03 -0400 Subject: Re: Re(2): SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #51 Sue Wensel wrote: > Marham talks about "fine white flour." Could this be bleached flour? (I had > always assumed so.) > > Derdriu Could be. As I posted earlier (and then deleted for space, dummy that I am) it seems to be one of those things that COULD have existed. I just figured Markham is talking about finely bolted flour: sifted through a fine muslin or other cloth that would allow the passage of the starchy grains without most of the bran. Adamantius From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 18:05:09 -0400 Subject: Re: SC - Sugar is sweet and so are you... Jeanne Stapleton wrote: > Also, we were talking about bleaching flour earlier. My > understanding is that much modern bleached flour comes about because > of chemical bleaching, not storage methods. I have also been going > for the unbleached white flour, which is still fine and white, and > using that in my SCA cooking attempts. Any thoughts on this? From Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking", page 290: 'BLEACHING AND AGING After the flour has been ground and blended to the desired mix of particles, it is treated chemically to to accomplish in a matter of minutes what otherwise takes weeks. Bleaching removes the light yellow color caused by xanthophylls, a variety of carotenoid pigment also found in potatoes and onions. The color has no practical or nutritional significance and is oxidized simply to obtain a uniform whiteness. Bleaching does, however, destroy the small amounts of vitamin E in flour, which probably accounts for its bad reputation in some circles. For historical reasons, yellow coloration is valued in pasta, and so semolina is never bleached. Bleaching is often accomplished with the same gas, chlorine dioxide, that is used to age, or "improve," the flour. But even unbleached flour has been aged with potassium bromate or iodate. Aging has several important practical results. It has long been known that flour allowed to sit for one to two months develops better baking qualities; hence the practice of letting flour "age" before use (during this period, it is also naturally bleached by oxygen in the air).' It seems as if there's little practical difference between the bleached and the unbleached flour as regards the introduction of foreign matter to the flour, especially since the foreign matter doesn't remain in the finished product. As regards the removal of the vitamin E from the flour, this is pretty insignificant, since the majority of the vitamin E is found in the germ, which isn't part of white flour anyway. My suggestion to those who want to come as close as they can to period flours is to use stone-ground whole wheat flour, which can be sieved to remove some or most of the bran, depending on the fineness of the bolting cloth. People living in cities with large Orthodox Jewish communities might be able to get hold of some Passover flour, such as non-industrial matzoh is made of. This is a fresh, unaged, unbleached, sieved white flour. Hard to get hold of, but worth the effort for experimentation. Adamantius Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 12:31:42 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: Re(2): SC - Bread S. Noss wrote: > Kind gentles, a newbie question. What is a bolting cloth? > > Shirley A bolting cloth is used to sift and grade flour. In pre-industrial times, whole wheat was ground in a mill, then sifted through successively finer bolting cloths to get various grades of flour, from dark whole-wheat to _almost_ white, for the wealthy. You can still buy a textile item called bolting cloth, I understand, but it usually isn't used for bolting anymore, so far as I know. Nowadays the harder wheat we tend to grow and eat has the outside bran removed by a machine with rollers, and THEN it's ground into flour. Adamantius Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 12:53:41 -0400 (EDT) From: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy at abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU> Subject: Re: Re(2): SC - Bread Kind gentles, a newbie question. What is a bolting cloth? Mister Dictionary says: bolt vt [ME bultan, fr. OF buleter, of Gmc origin; akin to MHG biutelnX to sift, fr. biutel bag, fr. OHG bu-til 1: to sift (as flour) usu. through fine-meshed cloth archaic 2: SIFT bolt (bolt) verb, transitive To pass (flour, for example) through a sieve. [Middle English bulten, from Old French buleter, from Middle High German biuteln, from biutel, bag, purse.] Tibor Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 12:45:31 -0700 From: Brett and Karen Williams <brettwi at ix.netcom.com> Subject: SC - Re: Bread What about spelt flour? Would spelt be a good substitute for modern unbleached white? I'm on the mailing list for King Arthur's Flour Company (Sands & Taylor), and they're a good source for all kinds of specialty grains, including hard and soft wheat flour varieties. I bought a bag of spelt flour from my local health food store after reading about spelt in the KAFC catalog. Spelt flour is sorta similar in texture to common unbleached white-- but the differences are a nuttier (and IMHO opinion more flavorful) and more complex taste, more nutritious, and has a color between whole wheat and white flour. I used the spelt flour in all kinds of baked goods in lieu of my more usual unbleached white, including Definitely Right Out Of Period Tollhouse Cookies, with great success. cirostan From: Gunnora Hallakarva <gunnora at bga.com> To: ansteorra at Ansteorra.ORG Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 09:53:08 -0500 Subject: ANST - Sifters and Sieves The discussion on baking, ovens and bread asked about period sifters/sieves. I don't know what anyone else was using, but I can tell you what the Vikings used (and in fact, Swedes in the countryside still use even today)... they used a round, cup-shaped sieve made by naalbinding, utilizing horsehair fiber. Such sieves were used for sifting flour, and for straining milk. Milk straining is how most seem to be used in the present day, but archaeological examples have been found with ground grain trapped in the fibers. Gunnora Hallakarva Herskerinde Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 13:12:56 -0500 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - Tip o' the Day idea >Seriously tho', could the references in Apicius to pre-cooked spelt when >making dumplings be referring to puff pastry dough? Tried it in Vehlings >BookII, Number 46, and incorporated the scallops , pepper and eggs into the >dough. Dropped it by tblspns into hot fat (olive oil). It turned out >great....what do you think? > >Lord Ras Spelt (Triticum spelta) is a hard wheat still cultivated in Italy and (I believe) Germany. It was replaced in common use by softer wheats which made better flour. While I have no practical experience with it, my notes say that it mills to a coarse flour and is used in polenta, porridge and bread. Boiling spelt flour would soften the meal and might improve the texture for use in pastry dough. Bear Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 09:59:17 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - Sharpening Fine Points or Will Adamantius Tell All? >2. What modern flours most closely correspond to the sorts of flours >referred to in period sources? Here's a little lecturey commentary on what I've tried. Bear The Wheat The original European wheat was emmer and has been used since Antiquity. This was later joined by German wheat (spelt), which appears to have been popular in Rome and was spread across Europe by the Vandals. These were displaced by club wheat. There are now some 30,000 varieties of wheat developed from these basic stocks. Medieval wheats were white-skinned and soft (low in gluten). Modern wheats, especially those grown in North America are red, amber or yellow-skinned and are hard (high in gluten). Spelt was popular in bread making because it was harder than the other wheat available at the time. Modern flours tend to be mixtures of flours with all-purpose or bread flour being high in gluten and cake flour being low in gluten. In practice, I ignore the difference between hard and soft flours and use what is readily available. Unless you can get it through a bakery supply, soft flour tends to come in small packages with a very high price. The Milling Medieval flour was stone milled. Most modern flour is roller milled, a process developed in the 19th Century. Roller milling breaks the wheat germ loose from the endosperm early in the milling process, yielding wheat germ and bran as a salable products and high extraction flour. Because of the minimal wheat germ, roller milled flour has an indefinite storage life and is drier than a comparable stone milled flour. The germ is used to make semolina and other wheat germ products. In Medieval milling, the fineness of the meal depended on the quality of the stones. Wheat would normally have been ground on the hardest, closest tolerance stones available to achieve the finest average meal. Stone ground wheat comes very close to the fineness of roller milling. The chief difference is in the level of extraction. Stone grinding reaches a maximum of about 80% extraction. Roller milling goes above 90% extraction. There are 4 layers of skin on a wheat berry. This is the bran. Apparently in parts of England, the coarser fragments of the skin were referred to as bran and the finer fragments were referred to as chisel. After milling, flour was boulted (sieved) through fabric to remove the bran and establish the fineness of the flour. The bran removed during the boulting would be used by the miller to feed his livestock or be sold to others as feed. Boulting cloths were made of linen, canvas, or wool, being joined by silk in the mid-18th Century. The lowest grade of flour would be that straight from the mill. A prudent farmer might take his meal this way to ensure the maximum return and boult the flour immediately before use. Once boulted flour would remove the largest pieces of the bran, but there would still be pieces of bran and chisel and a fairly coarse flour. This flour would be used for rough breads, possibly trenchers. I've used a Hodgson Mill 50/50 Wheat and White Flour, which I believe would fall between once boulted and twice boulted flour. Twice boulted flour is called for in The Good Huswife's Handmaide for the Kitchen (1594) for the making of fine manchet. This flour is used for making fine breads and general pastries. To approximate it, I use a stone ground whole wheat flour with graham and unbleached white flour mixed between 1:1 and 2:1. This is probably the flour called for when a recipe speaks of "fine flour" or "fair flour". I've seen finer flour mentioned, but I can't remember the reference. In this circumstance, I would use a whole wheat pastry flour I am able to purchase in bulk or a 1:1 mix of the pastry flour and unbleached white flour. This particular whole wheat flour is about the same color as the unbleached white flour and may be what is being referred to by "finest white flour". Some Thoughts Modern high extraction flour has a lower moisture content than its Medieval counter part. It will probably require more liquid than called for in a recipe. While recipes call for "white" flour, they say nothing about the color of the end product. Some of the manchets I made with a 1:1 mix of whole wheat pastry flour and unbleached white flour produced a lovely golden brown loaf, whose color resembles that of the breads in Medieval paintings. Would a 1:1 mix of HM 50/50 and whole wheat pastry flour be closer to a Medieval twice boulted flour than what I currently use? Did a miller user different kinds of cloth for different boultings? Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 01:35:13 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - Flours was:[Dstlg] beer bread, OOP > Arabella said: > I have had the same problem with my bread maker. I have found that > wheat flour takes longer to cook, and the very best flour for a bread > machine is the type ground specially for the machine. Gold Medal makes > one, it comes in a yellow package. There's is something about how it's > ground that makes it different from regular bleached flour. The yellow bag Gold Medal flour I'm familiar with is a bromated flour. It contains additives to increase aeration and improve the rise. I've used it, but it causes problems with fine baking, so I tend to use all-purpose flour except where a specialty flour is required. It might improve the action of a bread machine. I believe you are also talking about whole wheat when you say wheat flour. Whole wheat has less gluten than white flour. If you are not already doing it, try mixing whole wheat and white flour 1:1. If the recipe calls for 1 pkg (teaspoon) of yeast, you might consider using 2 teaspoons of yeast. > To which Kiriel replied: > Most of the flour you buy in the local supermarket is too low in > gluten to make really good bread. Gluten is the protein in > wheat, and helps to give doughs resilience, stretch and > good rising abilities. Most shop-bought flours have been > bleached within an inch of their lives (so to speak) and have > very little protein left. > > Having lived in USA most of my life and moved to Australia, I never had > the problem with low gluten flours til I moved here. While I agree that > most shop bought flours have less gluten in them, I found the problem > worse in Australia. My mother, living in the US still makes lots of > bread, I do not believe she normally adds gluten. Times do change > however and I could be wrong. > > Nicolette > Barony of Stormhold > Principality of Lochac, Kingdom of the West The gluten content is dependent on the type of wheat and to some extent the processing. The preferred wheats for bread making are "hard" wheats, those having a red, amber or yellow skin. "Soft" wheats have a pale, almost white skin. Hard wheats are high in gluten. The best hard wheats are grown primarily in the US and Canada. Rye has some gluten, but all other cereals have virtually none (flours other than wheat are mixed with wheat flours to get a rise). In processing, whole wheat has less gluten than white wheat. Bleaching doesn't do much to gluten, but it does remove the B-vitamins. I prefer unbleached white flour for my general baking. Wheat germ and bran are removed in the milling process, but that has more to do with nutrition than good baking. Store bought flour in the US is more than adequate to make a good loaf of bread. I don't know about the situation in Australia, but you might look to see if any of the flours are labeled as "strong" flour. If you do have low gluten flour, rejoice, it makes great cakes and pastries. If you want to use it to make bread, and about an ounce of gluten extract to the pound and toss in a little wheat germ for good measure. Beyond that, I would look for a bakery supply that is willing to sell to the general public. Bear Date: Sat, 2 May 1998 16:22:56 -0700 From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com> Subject: Re: SC - chickpea flour At 2:57 PM -0600 5/2/98, Stefan li Rous wrote: >Aldyth said: >>I will owe my soul to the King Arthur Flour company. I discovered I have >>a taste for chickpea flour..... >Taste? How does it compare to wheat flour? Was this used throughout >Medieval Europe? Or was this just a Middle Eastern item? It appears in an 13th c. Andalusian recipe for Counterfeit Isfiriya of Garbanzos. David/Cariadoc http://www.best.com/~ddfr/ Date: Sat, 2 May 1998 19:56:31 -0400 From: "marilyn traber" <mtraber at email.msn.com> Subject: Re: SC - chickpea flou rking arthur flour King Arthur Flour has a website with online catalog. They also have a country store if you want to drive up into the middle of Vermont somewhere...] margali Date: Sun, 3 May 1998 09:12:50 -0500 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - chickpea flou rking arthur flour > King Arthur Flour has a website with online catalog. They also have a > country store if you want to drive up into the middle of Vermont > somewhere...] > > margali They also have a number of commercial distributors across the country and the flour can be found in a number of supermarkets. Bear Date: Sun, 3 May 1998 16:03:00 -0500 From: Chris Adler <Chris.Adler at westgroup.com> Subject: SC - King Arthur Flour Co.'s URL A number of you have recently discussed the King Arthur Flour Company. The URL is www.kingarthurflour.com. I *strongly* recommend their goods. My mother has been buying their flours, whole grains, extracts, and baking equipment for the past 20 to 30 years, so I grew up eating homemade bread and baked goods made with King Arthur flour for most of my life. Their service has always been speedy and courteous, and they've added a *lot* of items to their catalogue over the past five years. The prices are reasonable (although I can now get the flour a little cheaper in my local s supermarket). There are some products which I believe are of interest to the medievalist (saffron; chickpea, rice, and English granary flours; cone sugar; etc.) and tons of wonderous and useful things for the modern baker. And the recipes...mmm. No, I don't work for them. I just love to drool over their catalogue and watch friends similarly turn into puddles when I show them the catalogue for the first time. It is a baker's nirvana. Katja Davidova Orlova Khazarina Date: Mon, 04 May 1998 11:29:40 +1000 From: Robyn Probert <robyn.probert at lawpoint.com.au> Subject: Re: SC - chickpea flour Stefan asked: >Taste? How does it compare to wheat flour? Was this used throughout >Medieval Europe? Or was this just a Middle Eastern item? The taste is very different to wheat flour - it tastes slightly nutty, but that's a poor description. It has no gluten in it so it behaves very differently to wheat flour. You can't use at alone for pastry or bread, but it makes a great batter for frying savory things in. It is heavily used in modern Indian cooking as well, but I don't have any period European sources (correction - I know I have one thanks to Cariadoc's post). Rowan Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 08:21:39 -0400From: "marilyn traber" <mtraber at email.msn.com>Subject: Re: SC - chickpea flou rking arthur flourOr if you have the right type of counter mounted hand cranked grinder you can make it yourself from dried chick peas from the local grocery stores Spanish/Mexican section.... margali Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1998 15:58:29 -0500 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC -Simmering cream sauce, was Fried/fri interjection > At 11:19 AM -0400 9/3/98, Jgoldsp at aol.com wrote: > >Roux is classical french method of thickening sauces and gravies that came in > >to being in France around the mid17th century though there are hints in > >earlier books.This happened because of a little revolution in plowing method > >and in grain plantin{ie wheat} and finally the milling process which allowed > >a finer whiter flour to be produced. > > I'm not sure I understand your explanation of why it happened. How would > a change in plowing methods be relevant? Roux uses trivial amounts of flour > compared to bread, so it isn't likely to have anything to do with changes > in price and availability. My impression is that you can make fine flour > by stone grinding--am I wrong? > > David/Cariadoc Stone grinding will produce a very fine flour if you are using hard, careful dressed stones. In such cases about 80 percent of the wheat berry becomes usable flour. Roller milling, a 19th Century invention, increases the percentage of usable flour, but not necessarily the fineness of the flour. In any event, very fine flour could have been had in period by boulting through fine cloth and flour usable in roux could have been had by passing twice-boulted flour through a fine sieve. IIRC, mid to late 17th Century saw the introduction of contour plowing and some hybrid wheats, but those would have nothing to do with the fineness or whiteness of the flour. Bear Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1998 20:57:16 EDT From: LrdRas at aol.com Subject: SC - Flour as Thickener In a message dated 9/4/98 9:42:26 AM Eastern Daylight Time, alm4 at cornell.edu writes: << it sounds too much like using flour to me, and I remember my mother always telling me using flour to thicken can make something taste awful. >> Without sounding disrespectful to your dear mother, I would suggest that if she used flour and it tasted 'awful' then she was probably not cooking it long enough after the flour was added. Using cornstarch and arrowroot as a thickener only needs a minute more or less to cook and thicken. Flour needs several minutes to cook and loose it's raw taste. Another problem may have been the amount of flour she used when she had her 'bad' experience; as well as the pre-preperation of the thickener. Flour is used at approximately 1 tblsp per cup of liquid. You should also make a thin paste of the flour and water, milk or broth making sure you have no lSlowly pour the mixture in to the boiling pan of liquid. REDUCE the heat to a simmer and leave, stirring frequenbtly until thickened.. Personally , I prefer using flour when thickening meat gravies and use cornstarch for puddings and fruit dishes on most occasions..I have never been a fan of arrowroot because I find it makes for a poor thickener when compared to the others. It's main advantage is that you can add it to the pan in it's dry state without worrying about lumps in your sauce. ;-) Rice flour is workable and I always use it in period recipes that call for it.Each type of thickener has it's place. :-) A side thought on the 'cornflour' discussion. I went to Fresh Life after work today and bought both cornstarch and cornflour. Cornflour is as fine as regular flour but yellower. Cornstarch is silky and definitely white. It is apparent to me at least that cornstarch and cornflour are the maize equivalents of wheat starch and wheat flour. They are definietely 2 very different products. Sunday I will be experimenting with both to observe just what differences their are in the cooking arena. Ras Date: Sat, 05 Sep 1998 00:08:00 -0400 From: Phil & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - amydoun (a new question, I swear!) kat wrote: > So the gist of what I have gleaned from this discussion is, amydoun is a wheat-based starch with similar properties to modern cornstarch, is used in the same way and produces similar results. > > So let's say I wanted to bring my perioid cooking a step closer to *period* cooking by obtaining some amydoun. Can I actually purchase this somewhere under some name or other; or do I actually (gasp) have to make it myself? You _could_ make it yourself, if you really wanted to, but the easiest thing to do is buy a bag of wheat starch from a Chinese grocery store. You'll find it on the shelf along with rice flour, tapioca starch, arrowroot, water chestnut flour, etc. It usually comes in a one-pound paper sack wrapped in plastic, or a double thickness of plastic bag. There _are_ still Chinese groceries that do mail order, aren't there? I know many Chinese cookbooks used to have lists of these, with their addresses, in the back. Bet there is some place on the Web where you can buy the stuff, too. Adamantius Date: Wed, 09 Sep 1998 19:48:02 -0400 From: Phil & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - Rice flour Diana Skaggs wrote: > Leanna notes: I have prepared homecooked "frozen dinners." If you want a > gravy that doesn't separate during freezing, the rice starch is the way > to go. I'll go with that, as a general thing, but I find rice flour can be a little gooey (which _is_ avoidable), and it tends to alter the color of the cooked product by lightening it a shade or two. It doesn't become transparent the way cornstarch or even a properly made wheat-flour-thickened sauce does. For freezing, the officially approved thickener is a substance called waxy maize. In honesty, though, I've never actually run across the stuff, even industrially. Another difficulty is that nothing browns the way flour does, so rice flour as a thickener for a brown sauce or gravy tends to make it kinda blah in color. But for pale sauces, rice flour or even potato starch are good choices for freezing. Adamantius Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1998 23:06:18 -0400 From: Phil & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - ham Deborah Schumacher wrote: > My mom used to do an awesome ham wrapped in ryebread dough. ( i think it > was rye bread ) > It kept the juices in and was always discarded after cooking. ( Well sure i > did try a nibble but it was nothing i would reccomend. ) > > Zoe Rye_bread_ dough or rye flour pastry? Rye flour pastry is sometimes recommended by authors like Gervaise Markham for heavy-duty pasties, such as larger ones made with venison... Adamantius Date: Thu, 07 Jan 1999 23:00:50 -0500 From: Ann & Les Shelton <sheltons at conterra.com> Subject: SC - Tech info re Biscuits - OOP Before Christmas, we discussed the uniqueness of Southern biscuits. I happened to read an article today which may partially explain why they are hard to replicate in other parts of the country. The article was a profile on Shirley Corriher, a chemist and professional food scientist. Chefs like Julia Child use her to figure out why foods behave the way they do. She uses her grandmother's biscuit recipe to illustrate the benefit of low-protein flour. She uses White Lily flour, a popular Southern brand, which has 9 grams of protein per cup. By comparison, Pillsbury and Gold Medal have 12 grams per cup. The more protein, the more glutens formed and hardened during baking. With fewer glutens formed using White Lily, the biscuits come out lighter and fluffier. So, part of the reason our biscuits are the delicacies they are may be due to the fact we're using lower-protein flour. She didn't explain why there's such a difference in protein content between brands. I'm going to look at the popular brands in SC {Adluh, Red Band, etc} and check their protein content to see if the lower levels are prevalent among Southern brands. Perhaps someone with a greater knowledge of baking can explain the discrepency? The article also included a number of her other findings, such as why cranberries baked with baking soda turn green, which fruits destroy gelatin and why sage helps a custard set. Her 1997 book "Cook Wise, the Hows and Whys of Successful Cooking" won a James Beard award. She's now working on a book about baking. John le Burguillun Cyddlain Downs {Columbia SC} Atlantia Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1999 22:25:55 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - Tech info re Biscuits - OOP > She didn't explain why there's such a difference in protein content > between brands. I'm going to look at the popular brands in SC {Adluh, > Red Band, etc} and check their protein content to see if the lower > levels are prevalent among Southern brands. Perhaps someone with a > greater knowledge of baking can explain the discrepency? > > John le Burguillun > Cyddlain Downs {Columbia SC} > Atlantia Almost all of the protein in wheat flour is contained in the gluten. High gluten flours make better bread. Low gluten flours make better pastries. There are a few circumstances where the reverse is true, but you probably won't encounter them unless you are doing serious French artisan baking. Using low gluten flour, the texture of the product normally is softer with more irregular aeration. Unless you purchase specialty flours, most of what you can get in the store is "all purpose" flour. All purpose flour is a blend of hard and soft flours, so that you can produce reasonable, but not great, breads and pastries with it. Each manufacture has their own blend. In the case of White Lily, the manufacturer uses a higher proportion of soft flour. In over the counter flours, Gold Medal's Softasilk is about the softest at 8 grams protein per cup. Some commercial pastry flours have fewer grams of protein per cup, but you have to special order them in 50 to 100 lb. bags. Bear Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 10:56:42 EST From: Vanishwood at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - Tech info re Biscuits - OOP In a message dated 1/7/99 10:58:12 PM EST, sheltons at conterra.com writes: << levels are prevalent among Southern brands. Perhaps someone with a greater knowledge of baking can explain the discrepency? >> According to our baking goods product manager... The reason why most regional southern brands have lower protein content is due to the fact that flour milling operations use the local wheat. The wheat in the south has that chacteristic. Most mills do not ship wheat cross country and use whatever is local. However, Pillsbury, being national in scope, will tend to standardize its formultaion across the country and is the reason why you will see some differences among brands. Ethelwulf Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 13:08:54 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - period bread comments > I've been wondering that myself. I'm curious as to what their flours were > like and what grains were used most often. I have been experimenting with > different types (whole wheat, rye, barley, oat, rice, buckwheat, soy), and > have achieved a wide range of textures, flavors and densities. What would > there wheat flour have been like, would peasants be using something like our > whole wheat? How finely ground were their flours? I assume they used some > kind of starter for yeast, would their bread have had a more sourdough > flavor? > > Faoiltighearna > Torvald's Hird > Canton of Ravenhill, BBM, East Barley, rye and oats produce more grain per acre than wheat, so wheat was the expensive grain to produce. Rye and oats will grow where barley and wheat won't, so they are more common the farther north you go. Buckwheat is not as popular as the other grains. Soy is unknown. Rice is of limited use until late in period. Flours could run the range from coarse meal to very fine. Meals are used primarily in cooked grain dishes. Finer flours are used to make bread. Peasants would be more likely to use rye, barley, oats and buckwheat than wheat, but where economic conditions permitted, wheat moved down the economic ladder. The choicest breads were made from wheat and it was wheat which was the standard grain of a noble house. Mixed grains in porridge and flour are also fairly common. A little wheat flour provides gluten to help a heavy bread rise. Medieval mills could grind flour as fine as our standard flours. The chief difference is the amount of flour that could be extracted. Medieval mills can convert about 85 percent of the grain to flour. Modern mills can produce 90 to 95 percent extraction. Modern roller mills separate the wheat germ from the from the grain, something that did not occur in medieval milling. Flour was sieved through cloth (boulted) to remove bran and large particles and to seperate the finer flour from the coarser flour. The average quality loaf would likely come from twice-boulted flour. The fine white loaf would most likely be made with thrice-boulted flour. For practical purposes, using a standard unbleached flour will approximately equal medieval fine flour excepting the gluten content. The most common wheat in the middle ages was emmer (Triticum dicoccum). This produces a low gluten flour similar to cake flour although perhaps not as fine.. The other common wheat was spelt (Triticum spelta). Spelt had a a higher gluten content and produced a coarser flour. It was used primarily in breads. In the matter of yeast vs. sourdough, English recipes call for yeast or ale barm. This was dipped out of the active ale pot and used to leaven the bread. The yeast in this case is Saccharomyces cerevisiae. A variant of this yeast is what is commonly used in dry active or compressed yeast today. On the otherhand, the French discouraged the use of yeast barm and forced bakers to use a levain. Platina's bread recipe is of this sort. Originally, the levain was a lump of dough reserved from the previous baking and added to the next batch as a starter. Modern French bakers feed their levains and pinch dough off of them to be the starter. A levain tends to be stiff ball of dough while most sourdough starters are semi-liquid, but they perform the same function. If you are interested in more information, try Stefan's Florilegium at: http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/rialto/idxfood.html Read over the sections on bread, bread-making, flours and yeasts. There is a lot of good information and recipes there. Bear Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 06:44:44 EST From: WOLFMOMSCA at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - period bread comments << I've been wondering that myself. I'm curious as to what their flours were like and what grains were used most often. I have been experimenting with different types (whole wheat, rye, barley, oat, rice, buckwheat, soy), and have achieved a wide range of textures, flavors and densities. What would there wheat flour have been like, would peasants be using something like our whole wheat? How finely ground were their flours? I assume they used some kind of starter for yeast, would their bread have had a more sourdough flavor? Faoiltighearna Torvald's Hird Canton of Ravenhill, BBM, East >> Try experimenting with spelt flour. I think this may also answer our question concerning poundage. A machine-made loaf of spelt bread weighs considerably more than the same size loaf made from regular wheat or whole wheat flour. The grain is period (it's the ancient ancestor of modern durum & winter wheats). The loaf is much denser, with an almost nutty back-flavor. It's really tasty, and it won't bloat you up like modern wheat does. Same holds true for amaranth (if you haven't tried bread made from this grain, you should. It's yummy!), although this one only has historicity for Aztec personae, AFAIK. Wolfmother Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 06:18:17 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - period bread comments > Same holds true for amaranth (if you haven't tried bread made from this grain, > you should. It's yummy!), although this one only has historicity for > Aztec personae, AFAIK. > > Wolfmother The Amaranthaceae (pigweeds) are found in the warm regions of both the New and Old Worlds. Several species are used as grain. Since the Old World species originate in Africa, they probably were not used in Europe. The first reported European encounter was during Pedro de Alvarado's expedition into Guatemala, where he found amaranth paste being worked into tamales used in the worship of Huitzilipochtli. The Spanish outlawed the cultivation of the plant to suppress the religion and its human sacrifices. Bear Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 16:34:44 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - Khushkananaj (was: Ideal vs. practical) > Also, perhaps the "White" flour was a blend of flours or flour and some > preservative or ingredient that rendered it more white, and consequently > added a leavening action, or from a specific preparation method? > > Is there a source for raw fresh flour? > > Brandu In general, period fine white flour is a well-cleaned, finely milled flour of at least three boultings from very light wheat berries. The best modern equivalent I know of is King Arthur's White Whole Wheat Flour. This flour contains the wheat germ and has no preservatives. There are a number of local mills that produce limited amounts of flour, usually as a historical recreation or for the health food trade. If you have one of these near you, you can get fresh flour from them. Caveat: You want stone ground. Roller milling separates the wheat germ. By definition, flour is raw, until you cook it. Once you coagulate the gluten, the flour is no longer raw. For practical purposes, there is no difference between fresh and aged flour. Professional bakers prefer aged flours, because they have a more standardized moisture content. Should you get to reviewing the translation of the recipe, try to find the terms used to describe sourdoughs and leavens. It seems to me this recipe would work if you substituted a fully proofed sourdough for the flour. Bear Date: Sun, 2 May 1999 11:22:51 -0500 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - Seeking wheat illumination - OOP > >>Are spaetzle made in the same way as Italian pasta is? And what are > all those different flours they have in Germany? << > > I don't know, Elysant, what are the flours are, but I think they are > different kinds of milling. We have bread flour, all-purpose, and cake > flour, which is very fine. They have a lot more. > > Allison Actually, it is not so much the milling but the percentage of gluten they contain, although cake flour is usually finer than the others. Bread flour is high-gluten, cake flour is low gluten, and all-purpose flour is a blend of the two. Then you get types of wheat, fineness, bran content, germ content and all the other esoteric things bakers play with. Bear Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 08:49:32 -0500 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - Graham Flour > Has anyone seen references to the use of graham flour as period? I will > probably still use it for a fruit tart I'm making, but I was hoping to run > down a source. I have a few books but don't see any reference to graham > flour. > > Roibeard Graham flour is whole wheat flour with the bran in it. Considering the extraction rates, modern graham flour is probably very similar to period flour after the first bolting, which would be used for making wastel. Fine pastries and breads would be made from flour of the second bolting. Bear Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 22:35:19 +0100 From: Thomas Gloning <Thomas.Gloning at germanistik.uni-giessen.de> Subject: SC - Flower of the flour / melebly / flos farinae / fleur de farine / flor de la harina Lady Brighid said: <<< [2] Remember when we were having the discussion about "flower" meaning the best of something? I was tempted to comment that some Spanish recipes have a phrase that I would be obliged to translate as "the flower of the flour". Well, here it is: "flor de la harina". >>> Alas, I do not remember the discussion about "flower" in the sense of 'the best of something'. But I remember when I was thinking about a line of the Rheinfraenkisches Kochbuch: "vnd du ein melebly dar uff" (and put some flour-flower upon it; 294r.11 in recipe 70, note page 87). Commenting on "melebly" (flour-flower), I found that there is also a latin expression (_flos farinae_) and a French expression (_fleur de farine_) that is used several times in the 'Menagier'. I am happy, to add span. "flor de la harina" to the collection now. Thank you, Thomas Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1999 08:51:31 EST From: LrdRas at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - Cornflour At least where I purchase both corn flour and cornflour. Corn flour is exactly that. A flour made from corn (e.g., maize) that is of the same texture as regular flour only yellowish is color. It makes an excellent substitute for wheat flour when used in coating food for pan or deep frying, providing a nice depth of flavor lacking in wheat flour. Cornflour is silky almost oily texture and can be used as a base for body powders or as a thickening agent for sauces and gravies. The closest flour that I can think of is rice flour so far as texture and some forms of usage. Ras Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1999 15:32:23 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - corn flour? - oop > Yes, I believe so. In addition, I think the "plain soft flour" means a white > flour with a low gluten content, like our pastry flour, or maybe cake flour. > Actually, this is an extrapolation - I find "plain strong flour" defined as > high-gluten flour for breadmaking, with additional description of the > "strong" part to confirm that, and the "plain" flours seem to be white > flours, but I have not been able to find a straightforward statement that > says "plain" flours are always white. Perhaps someone else can clarify > this? > In the meantime, I am assuming from Elizabeth David's description that our > all-purpose white flour (unbleached?), though slightly higher in gluten > content than British "ordinary plain household flour", would do just fine > for this recipe. (BTW, I like using half unbleached all-purpose flour and > half cake flour (Softasilk brand, and always bleached) for shortbread > cookies.) > > Morwyn of Wye, O.L. You are correct that "soft" and "hard" mean low-gluten and high-gluten respectively. The terms appear to come from the technique of squeezing a handful of flour to feel the hardness of the flour. The harder it feels, the more gluten. "Plain" usually means that the flour has not been bromated (to improve the rise) or had other chemicals added. IIRC, "plain" does not cover bleached or unbleached, as the bleaching does not modify the baking properties of the flour. Since whole wheat flours are labelled as such, plain flours will tend to range from brilliant white to light ivory in color, the baker's whites. Bear Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 11:13:05 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - barley bread > How about adding Gluten? I work in a bakery where we add gluten to just > about every thing, cause my boss says, too much of it is lost in the > prosessing of flour. I'm only an apprentice, and haven't studied up on it > much. What do you think? > > AdN You could add gluten to the barley, but the end product wouldn't be authentic. Mixing wheat with other flours is period practice if you are trying to get a rise. And if you are trying to bake a traditional flat bread or recreate a specific technique, why add gluten? For my purposes, most all purpose flour has enough gluten. If I need some serious gluten, I move up to the high protein strong bread flours. Of course, I'm not trying to keep costs down and production and quality up. Gluten forms most of the protein in flour and the percentage of protein per volume of flour normally runs between 8 and 17 percent, most all purpose flours being between 9 and 12 percent with a few low gluten cake flours running down to around 6 percent. There are some commercial, all-purpose flours, especially in the South, which run between 7 and 9 percent and probably need additional gluten to make decent commercial loaves. Anything 12 percent and up, probably doesn't need a gluten boost. Since a commercial bakery is trying to make a profit, it is very possible that the best priced flour needs additional gluten and that adding gluten is more cost effective than upgrading the flour. Bear Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 16:31:51 -0700 From: "Christi Rigby" <christirigby at pcisys.net> Subject: RE: SC - barley bread Gluten is a terrific thing for bread baking. I use it in all my bread recipes and they seem to raise so much better. But I don't cook period breads, yet (I know bad Murkial). But in all my regular and bread machine recipes I add it for that extra lift. Murkial Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 16:52:44 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - flour, sugar and fat in the medieval diet? The first thought which comes to mind is "which medieval diet?" In general, local foodstuffs were used, so diet is limited to what is locally available. For example, the common grains in 6th Century Ireland are barley and oats. These form a large part of the Irish diet. At the same time, rye is more common along the Baltic. And in Central France there seems to be a mix of wheat, barley, and various millets. Wild birds and fresh water fish were probably more common in the diet, beef less so, and wild game would be dependent on the local laws (remember your Robin Hood). <snip of non-flour info> By flour, I assume what is meant is wheat flour. Barley, rye, oats, millet and wheat were the common grains for making flour. Where it was available, wheat was favored, as it made the lightest, whitest bread. On the medieval economic scale, brown breads moved toward the poor while whiter breads moved toward the rich. There is very little difference between medieval and modern flour, especially stone ground, naturally aged flours. Modern extraction rates are higher. 95% average extraction compared to an estimated 85% optimal extraction. (Extraction rate is the percentage of grain milled to flour.) But, outside of the development of the roller mill in the 19th Century, the basic technology is much the same as when the Romans developed a rotary quern. Roller milling separates the germ from the kernal reducing the natural oils in the flour, while stone milling, as was done in the Middle Ages, reduces the entire kernal. Following milling, the flour is bolted (or sieved) to the fineness desired. The medieval bolter was a cloth through which the flour was passed to trap the bran and large particles. For truly fine flour, the process might be repeated one or two more times with finer weave bolting cloths. Muslin, linen and silk were all used in bolting cloths. Because the germ was not removed in medieval milling, medieval flour would have a slightly higher oil content and consequently a shorter self life than modern flour. Some people are concerned that the heat and pressure of roller milling destroys some of the nutritional value of the grain, but I have seen no evidence to support the claim. After milling, the flour was commonly aged for about two months or more. Aging improves the baking quality of the flour and provides a natural bleaching effect by oxidizing the xanthophyllus, which gives fresh flour a slight yellow tint. Modern flours may be naturally or chemically aged. Chemical aging uses chlorine dioxide, benzoyl peroxide, or chlorine gas to age the flour, bleaching it in the process. "Unbleached" flours may be aged with potassium bromate or iodate. Nutritionally, the only difference is the small amount of vitamin E in the flour destroyed by the chemical aging, but there are questions about the effects of the chemicals used. Bear Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 10:03:54 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - flour, sugar and fat in the medieval diet? Despite Jacob's assertion that flour was not bleached, xanthophyll, the carotenoid pigment which gives freshly milled flour a light yellow tint, oxidizes naturally as flour ages. Aging flour improves the quality of the gluten. If medieval flour was aged, then it was bleached. What Jacob is probably referring to is chemical "bleaching," which are actually techniques to quickly "age" the flour. I have a little difficulty with medieval flour being higher in fiber components than modern flour because of the milling technology, especially if you are talking stone milling. The grain is the same, so the ratio of nutritive to non-nutritive components is the same. The grain is crushed to a powder between two stones. The percentage of the grain crushed to powder depends upon the hardness and the closeness of the stones. Optimal extraction of flour from grain with a stone mill is about 85 percent, and average extraction was about 75 percent (if 14 pounds of "chisel" per bushel is any indicator). We can get better extraction rates from stone milling now with man-made stones and laser dressing, but those don't predate Jacob's work. Jacob may have been comparing medieval stone milling with modern roller milling. Roller milling has a much higher extraction rate and provides more useable flour for the same amount of grain. In the case of wheat, it also strips the vitamin rich germ and actually reduces the nutrional value of the flour when compared to stone ground flour. The cheapest brown breads were made from unbolted flour, which means the bran and the large particles of unground grain remained in the bread. Almost all modern flour is sieved, which leaves more of the nutritive components in the same volume of flour. It may be this fact of which Jacob was thinking when he made the comment, but the decision to bolt or not bolt is an economic choice rather than poor quality technology. Bear > Um, _6,000 Years of Bread_ states that the flour was not bleached, but > also claims that due to the poor quality of the milling techologies, the > flour of the middle ages tended to be very high in non-nutritive (i.e. > fiber) components-- to the detriment of the health of those who ate the > breads made of poorer flour. It's peculiar to think of it in this day and > age, but apparently there was _too much_ fiber in medieval breads? > -- > Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> To: "'sca-cooks at ansteorra.org'" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org> Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Semmel Date: Sun, 6 May 2001 17:56:27 -0500 Semmel is a small white roll made from fine flour. Valois Armstrong, who did this translation has translated Semmelmehl as being "grated Semmel." However, Semmelmehl in general means "fine, white meal or flour," as has been previously pointed out by Thomas Gloning. The word derives from the Latin, "simila" meaning "fine flour." Simnels, which are now crisp cakes with a marzipan topping, derived from an earlier version which had a marzipan filling, and may be derived from a fine loaf of enriched bread, although this last derivation is pure speculation at this time. The name also derives from "simila." Bear > While reading Sabrina Welserin, I keep coming across the the term, a > grated Semmel. > What is this, a food item or a cooking implement? > the web site is : > www.best.com/~ddfr/Medieval/Cookbooks/Sabrina_Welserin.html > > Beatrix of Tanet Date: Mon, 07 May 2001 02:31:07 +0200 From: tgl at mailer.uni-marburg.de To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Semmel << [1] Valoise Armstrong, who did this translation has translated Semmelmehl as being "grated Semmel." [2] However, Semmelmehl in general means "fine, white meal or flour," as has been previously pointed out ... >> Re [1]: _grated semmel_ is rather the translation for German _geribne semel_ in #37, #43, #46, #47, #72, #97 of Sabina Welser's cookbook. (http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~gloning/sawe.htm for the German text) Re [2]: _semelmell_ is a different case; sure, in general it means "fine, white meal or flour (from which the semmels are made)"; however, in a combination like _geriben semelmell_ (#44) I am inclined for the moment to think that very finely grated semmels are meant. It depends. Th. (PS while we're on it: Sabrina or Sabina? -- Sabrina_Welserin.html (with r) is the name of the FILE with the english translation. The name of the PERSON is Sabina (without r) Welser/Welserin. Thus, talking to a computer to request the file, don't leave out the "r". Speaking to humans about the person Sabina Welser you can simply write "Sabina Welser/Welserin".) From: "Wanda Pease" <wandap at hevanet.com> To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org> Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] angel biscuits Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 21:38:15 -0700 >I am under the opinion that the flours are the main >key to why the old biscuit recipes never work out these >days... or maybe it's memories. > >Johnna Holloway I think Johanna has hit on the answer as to why regional breads don't seem to translate from area to area. I recently got the book _Cookwise by Shirley O. Corriher, a food writer and "culinary sleuth" who specializes in finding the scientific reasons Why things work as they do in food prep. The book has recipes, some from very famous chefs, some from people like my grandmother (when she had anything to cook. The Farm Depression hit long before Wall Street fell). At any rate she talks about 10 different flours: Cake (Swans Down, Softasilk) for cakes, quick breads, muffins, pancakes; Instant flours (Shake&Blend, Wondra)for Sauce and gravy, blending to lower protein content; Bleached Southern all-purpose (White Lily, Martha White, Gladiola, Red Band) for Pie crusts, biscuits, quick breads, muffins; National brand self-rising (Gold Medal, Pillsbury) Biscuits, quick breads, muffing; National brand bleached all-purpose (Gold Medal, Pillsbury) A little too much protein for best pie crusts, quick breads, muffing, or pancakes; too little protein to make outstanding yeast breads; National brand un-bleached all-purpose (Gold Medal, Pillsbury) Yeast Breads, cream puffs; Northern all-purpose (Robin Hood, Hecker's) for yeast breads, cream puffs, puff pastry; Northern unbleached all-purpose (King Arthur) for Yeast breads, cream puffs, puff pastry, pasta, pizza; Bread flour for Yeast breads, pasta, pizza; and Durum Wheat (semolina) for Pasta. She lists the different amount of protein each type has in it. The Cake Flours have the least and produce lighter things like muffins and pancakes, the higher like Durum with 13+ grams/cup produce things like pasta dough. Your grandfather probably used a cake flour, or at least one that was produced from soft wheat and that allowed his biscuits to rise more. If your family moved north where the grains grown tended to be more the hard wheat variety that soft rise would have been reduced, and nothing would have tasted the same. Besides, it used to be a common joke that the wife could never make biscuits as light as mom! Luckily for my brothers wives my mother was a Pharmacist who cooked because she had to, not because she enjoyed it. Regina Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2001 11:20:55 -0800 To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org From: david friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Semolina Sourdough I think I missed the beginning of this. Semolina sourdough is pretty common in medieval Islamic recipes--Murakaba, for example. The Recipe for Folded Bread from Ifriqiyya in the Andalusian cookbook is baked from semolina, but nothing in the recipe implies that it is raised. Elsewhere the cookbook refers to "a tharid crumbled from white bread crumbs and leavened semolina well kneaded and baked." Barmakiya uses a leavened dough of semolina and ordinary flour. Taking the recipe literally, you never let it rise, but that may well be a mistake in the order of steps given. Looking through the Andalusian cookbook, semolina sourdough seems usually to be fried, not baked. But I haven't done a similar check for ordinary flour. There are a number of references to bread made from semolina. I like semolina--it's less powdery than ordinary flour, hence pleasanter to work with. -- David/Cariadoc http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2003 19:59:43 -0600 From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] gravy To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org> All flours are meal, but not all meals are flour. Meal refers to whole or ground grain although most people take it to mean ground (usually coarse, but it can be used for any fineness). Flour is finely ground (and often sieved) grain. Bear Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 13:06:49 -0400 From: AEllin Olfs dotter <aellin at earthlink.net> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Semolina, Khabisa with Pamegranate To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org> > My first mistake was not having semolina flour. I thought pastry and > bread flours were at one end of the scale and semolina/pasta flours at > the other, so for a substitute I chose some all-purpose flour. > > Stefan No, pastry and bread flours are at the opposite ends. Pastry flours are very low gluten, for a tender crumb. Bread flours are high gluten, so the bread will rise. All purpose flour is blended to be in the middle, so you can make either pastry or bread - and both wil be OK, though neither will be as good as if you used the appropriate flour. But the typical person doesn't do enough baking for it to make sense to have several kinds of flour. Semolina is made of durum wheat, which is high gluten. Pasta made with it i higher protein, and more likely to cook up al dente. If you make pasta with all purpose flour, it can come out pretty mushy, even if you are careful (BTDT.) Fine for egg noodles, which are tender anyway because of the egg, not so good for spaghetti. AElin Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 16:08:44 -0400 From: Avraham haRofeh <avrahamharofeh at herald.sca.org> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] was Libum recipe now whole wheat bread To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org> > Thanks for the recipe Ardenia! It got me thinking... I bake a lot of > yeast bread. If it is whole wheat, usually half whole wheat, half bread > flour. I tried my recipe with all whole wheat flour, but as you can > expect, it needs more leavening. I had a cousin suggest a teaspoon of > baking powder. It was OK, but does anybody have a recipe for bread with > 100% whole wheat flour with just more yeast perhaps? Whole wheat flour, because of the presence of the bran, has less protein per unit mass (or per unit volume) than white flour. Less protein means less gluten, and therefore breads made with 100% whole wheat flour are unable to support the gas bubble structure under the weight of themselves. You could try adding some vital wheat gluten (look in the baking supplies near the flour and yeast), but I suspect you will need at least SOME bread flour to support the structure. At the least, look for flours specifically for bread machine baking - they have the highest protein levels of any flour on your grocer's shelf. **************** Reb Avraham haRofeh (mka Randy Goldberg MD) Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 16:13:46 -0400 From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius.magister at verizon.net> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] was Libum recipe now whole wheat bread To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org> Also sprach Samrah: > Thanks for the recipe Ardenia! It got me thinking... I bake a lot > of yeast bread. If it is whole wheat, usually half whole wheat, > half bread flour. I tried my recipe with all whole wheat flour, but > as you can expect, it needs more leavening. I had a cousin suggest > a teaspoon of baking powder. It was OK, but does anybody have a > recipe for bread with 100% whole wheat flour with just more yeast > perhaps? My own experience has been that most of the whole wheat flour you're going to encounter has (naturally enough) a lot of bran in it, and the bran interferes with gluten extension (sort of). Essentially introducing a lot of little flakes with semi-sharp edges into a mass of strands cuts a lot of them. If you're dedicated to using 100% whole-wheat flour, you might try adding extra gluten (Arrowhead Mills sells this, and, I assume, the King Arthur flour people), or you might find some whole-wheat chappatti flour in an Indian market, which is fine whole-wheat flour ground from hard durum wheat: the milling process is powerful enough to reduce the size of the bran particles, and the hard wheat has a lot of protein and produces a little more gluten than some other whole wheat flours. Bread made from chappatti flour (not to mention chappattis) have something of the texture of semolina bread. Maybe not cloud-light, but lighter than most whole-wheat breads. Adamantius Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 17:25:07 -0500 From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Libum recipe To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org> > Cato's version of the recipe seems to call for a lot more cheese for an an > approximately equal amount of flour and egg, if I'm remembering my flour > weights (4 cups per pound). Would Cato's cheese have been more liquid? > > Sandra Another interesting question is would the flour have been wheat? Barley was the grain of choice during the Republic, giving way to wheat as Rome became an empire. The author of the recipe is Cato the Elder and predates the Empire by around a hundred years. The "fine flour" being called for in the recipe might be barley flour rather than wheat flour. Bear Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 17:52:54 -0500 From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] was Libum recipe now whole wheat bread To: <avrahamharofeh at herald.sca.org>, "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org> > Whole wheat flour, because of the presence of the bran, has less protein per > unit mass (or per unit volume) than white flour. Less protein means less > gluten, and therefore breads made with 100% whole wheat flour are unable to > support the gas bubble structure under the weight of themselves. You could > try adding some vital wheat gluten (look in the baking supplies near the > flour and yeast), but I suspect you will need at least SOME bread flour to > support the structure. At the least, look for flours specifically for bread > machine baking - they have the highest protein levels of any flour on your > grocer's shelf. > **************** > Reb Avraham haRofeh You're making some assumption which aren't necessarily true. A whole wheat flour does not necessarily have more bran than white flour nor does it necessarily have less protein per unit volume. Whole wheat flour has wheat germ in it. White or unbleached flour does not. Protein is dependent upon the protein content of the grain being milled. Whole wheat and white flour made from the same grain will have approximately the same protein content. To produce whole wheat, commercial mills tend to return wheat germ and bran to the flour, which does produce the effect you describe. In the past, I've purchased a bulk whole wheat pastry flour which has very little bran and is a soft flour between all purpose flour and cake flour. King Arthur's White Whole Wheat Flour is a high protein whole wheat flour that resembles unbleached flour. Both of t