Rant: Why I ditched all-in-one flour for separate bread and pastry flours

After 8 years of using that popular all-purpose blend from Costco, I finally switched to King Arthur bread flour for loaves and a soft pastry flour for cakes and cookies last month. My bread got way better crumb and my chocolate chip cookies stopped spreading into flat greasy puddles overnight. Has anyone else found that one flour just can't do everything right?

3 comments

3 Comments

simonp7619d ago

Whoa, that's a good point about the professional baker having six flours... it's pretty telling. My buddy Steve thought all-purpose was fine until he tried to make a birthday cake for his wife last spring. He used the same bag he always used for his pizza dough and the cake came out dense and gummy, like a sweet brick. She ate a slice to be nice but then told him the texture was off and he was crushed. He went out that weekend and bought separate bread and cake flours and now he's always sending me pics of his tall fluffy layers and perfect sandwich loaves. It's wild how much of a difference it makes.

the_claire19d ago

My buddy who bakes professionally told me once that all-purpose flour is basically a compromise that makes nobody happy, and he keeps like six different flours in his pantry now. That stuck with me because he's real picky about his croissants and even he says bread flour is a game changer for crusty loaves.

the_mary19d ago

Wait, @simonp76, are you sure your buddy Steve's cake disaster was just from using the wrong flour? I mean, I switched to cake flour for my birthday cakes and it helped a ton with texture, but I also had to dial back my butter a bit and start using room temperature eggs. When I tried bread flour for cookies I had to adjust the baking time too, otherwise they came out too chewy on the outside. It's not just one change, you know? The other flours need a little different handling.