Soft or Strong?

Pondering the power of flour, when and how to harness it...

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As I write this from my lived-in home kitchen with a brain and body that works in a professional setting, I often walk a line between the two. Baking at home vs baking at the bakery, ever conscious of the differences and occasional similarities.

Through the bakery, I’m fortunate to have access to a pretty mind-blowing range of flours; this was not always the case. Like most everyone I know, my introduction to baking began with the bag of white flour that was kept in the cupboard with the rest of the dry goods.

Whilst unremarkable in appearance, taking down that bag and gathering other ingredients came to represent a special occasion, birthday cakes or mince pies and the no less special but more routine Sunday fruit crumble, chocolate self-saucing pudding or chocolate chip and almond loaf that would tide you over after school.

Around seven or so years ago, I began to question this building block of baking. Where did it come from? How did it get here? What does it really taste like?

Since then, I have always kept asking questions, postulating, pondering and hypothesising all things flour and by that, I also mean all things grain, and by that, I also mean all things cereal—a Pandora’s box of possibilities.

New layers of understanding, significance and meaning began to mirror the layers I realised had been stripped and removed to produce that unremarkable bag of flour. Where was it grown? Who grew it? How was it grown? Where and when was it milled?

Flour soon became the starting point, the origin of where I baked from, and it informed what and how I baked. So wherever you are on your baking journey, this weekly letter will offer insights, broaden your vocabulary and understanding and give you the confidence and intuition to bake with a wider variety of flours. I promise it will blow your baking world wide open!

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To navigate the recipes that I share here with more ease, let’s begin building that vocabulary, using last week's recipe as a starting point. The recipe references ‘soft’ and ‘strong’ when choosing flour, but what does this mean?

More often than not, you will see strong flour called for in bread recipes, whilst for cakes, cookies, bars and pastries, ‘plain’ or ‘all-purpose’ flour will be listed. But, first things first, ain’t nobody wanna be plain, so instead, let’s consider flour by understanding a little more about its characteristics and functionality.

We can divide the world of wheat-based flour into some basic categories, and with time we will no doubt touch on them all, but to begin, we can broadly discuss the notion of flour strength by looking at two categories…hard types and soft types.

Hard types - typically higher in protein, or at least the type and distribution of proteins that offer a structurally sound building block for bread-based applications. Hence the term ‘Strong’, which we can attribute to the functionality of gluten. The potential of hard types to trap CO2 gas during fermentation (via the strength and elasticity of gluten and the flour's tolerance for hydration) leads to the features commonly associated with bread as we know it today, including a voluminous loaf, tall, air-filled and open in crumb structure.

Soft types - commonly lower in protein, or at least containing a type and distribution of more delicate and fragile proteins with a lower tolerance for hydration. These flours produce characteristics desirable in cakes, muffins, pancakes, biscuits, bars, cookies and quick breads. Think tender, delicate, short and close crumb structures, bakes that do not require natural fermentation or commercial yeast, but call for the leavening power of baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. The final texture of these bakes is also a result of the interplay between other ingredients, notably butter, sugar and eggs.

Important note: this broad classification does not mean you can’t make a wholly nutritious and delicious bread with soft types of wheat, and that tender pancakes and delicate crumbed cakes can not be produced with hard types.

This is because gluten does not just exist in and of itself in flour; it is formed from two specific proteins in flour, glutenin and gliadin. In addition, the extent to which gluten develops is influenced by factors such as hydration and mixing time.

If we consider potential strength as an outcome of combining and mixing flour, then gluten formation does not have to be absolute. Think of it like this…

Gliadin + Glutenin + Hydration (e.g. water/milk) + Agitation (i.e. mixing/kneading/folding) = Gluten formation.

It is all a case of managing expectations, understanding what you’re working with and what characteristics and attributes you want your baked goods to have. 

You can see from the pictures of last week's buttermilk scones that using a strong wholemeal flour (Ølands) produced a taller, more defined scone, whilst the use of a combination of soft white flour (Edgar) and wholemeal spelt flour produced a scone that spread more to give a shallower, less defined profile.

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Both versions were delicious and demonstrate the opportunity you have as a baker to play with the parameters and expectations of what baking should and can be.

The wholemeal scone was richer in flavour and structurally sound when spread with butter and marmalade for a sustaining morning snack. The tender and much more delicate crumb on the 50/50 Soft/Spelt made the perfect canvas for dessert. Split in half and filled with softly whipped cream and oven-baked rhubarb made for a fork-tender, sweet, but not too sweet dessert. Allowing the spectacle and flavour that is seasonal forced rhubarb to shine.

I encourage you to use the scone recipe as a starting point and to play around with the flour varieties available to you; bake a couple of batches side by side to compare the differences. You may find that some flours are thirstier than others and require a little more buttermilk to come together (especially wholegrain flours). Regardless the golden rule of scone making should be obeyed, handle the dough with a light touch and don’t overwork the mixture.

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A consequence of having so many flour varieties within my reach is that I return to recipes just like this, the ones that don’t take much time or effort (and indeed ingredient cost) but tell me something about the characteristic of the flour. They inform and inspire, allowing you to make a judgement call on how and where you’d like to use them in future recipes and what to expect the outcome to be. With minimal mix-ins or other ingredients in such recipes, you are forced to think and taste the flavour and texture of the flour. They spark flavour pairing ideas, serving suggestions and new possibilities to reimagine recipes on your terms.

As soup season continues, I think I’ll be calling on another wholemeal version, this time reducing the sugar to a scant teaspoon, adding a little more salt, some toasted caraway seeds, pumpkin seeds and grated parm to the mix. They’ll be pretty great served hot and buttered with a warm bowlful.

And as rhubarb season is only just getting started, the oven-roasted rhubarb recipe below will be on repeat for a while yet. It’s multipurpose and can be used to dress porridge and pancakes, served alongside thick yogurt or baked custards, incorporated into layer cakes and sandwiched between many more edible vessels.

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Oven Roasted Rhubarb

(Enough for 4 shortcakes/multiple bowls of porridge/a couple of stacks of pancakes/a round or two of French toast)

Pre-heat oven to 150 degrees C fan.*

For every 200g or so of trimmed rhubarb -

1cm piece of good quality fresh ginger*
1 blood orange, zest and juice
20-30g caster sugar*

Cut the rhubarb into sticks 5cm long and place in a baking dish. Give each stick some personal space; this helps keep them in good shape and allows for even baking quickly. (Very important in retaining all that colour and flavour).

Slice the ginger into thin coins and place them in a small bowl. Add the zest and juice of the orange, followed by the caster sugar. Stir together and pour over the rhubarb sticks.

Bake in the oven for 8 minutes or until just tender and yielding, before complete collapse. The time this takes will depend on the thickness, age of the stalks and point in the season, so keep your wits about you.

Use whilst still warm or allow to cool and store in a single layer in an airtight box with the juices for up to three days.

*If you do have a bakery, this can be easily baked in the residual heat of any large deck oven.

*Add spices or aromats to your liking. The addition of vanilla alongside the ginger really is magic, and you need not use a whole bean (that’s crazy); a couple of centimetres of a pod for this amount of rhubarb will do. Star anise and cardamom pods are excellent options as well.

*Sugar can be adjusted to suit taste and application. For example, if you’re looking to use it across multiple applications, then you can show restraint, adding only a small amount, then adding the required sweetness as needed by straining off the juices, adding a little more sugar and warming through to dissolve before serving with the rhubarb.