What is fortification?
It’s when vitamins and/or minerals are added to foods in order to enhance or “fortify” the flour and give it heightened nutritional and health benefits.
So what is flour fortification in the UK?
Currently, in theory, all milled white and brown non-wholemeal wheat flour manufactured and sold in the UK has calcium, iron, thiamine and niacin added. This ... Read more
BakeryBits is the UK's leading online stockist of couche linen.
Many of you have bought it already and we’re very happy that you like it so much. But there will be some of you who have no idea what it is, how it can improve your bread baking, and why so many bakers consider it essential. So here is a guide to buying and caring for your couche linen cloths.
Check out our full couche ... Read more
What is… strong flour. I guess by the name strong flour has strength, but what does that mean?
If a particular flour contains high-quality protein that in tests produce a elastic, resilient dough, then it’s correct to describe it as strong flour. In the USA the more straightforward term “bread flour" is used, and baking bread is what strong flour should be good for, or wherever ... Read more
Ok, so plain flour in the UK is "cake and pastry flour", am I right?
Maybe. Or not. The thing is, it’s not a specific thing, and that makes it hard to categorise. Bread flour – called strong flour in the UK – is generally assumed to have good levels of gluten, probably something around 11-14% protein, and score pretty well on strength and resilience tests; however plain ... Read more
So I’ve read that 00 Italian flour is the best for bread and pizza, is that true?
Forse sì, forse no. That’s Italian for maybe yes, maybe no. With that phrase alone you can go a long way in Italy, and get into some very tricky situations. See, the thing is those zero numbers have nothing to do with the doughmaking characteristics of the flour, but really only tell how finely ... Read more
Confused about these numbers in the names of many French flours: from T45 up to T150? Then find out here just what the French T-system for grading flour is all about.Choose the flour that’s right for what you want to bake…ideal for baguettes:Matthews French T55 Belle BlancA great general-purpose baguette flour, with excellent elasticity and stretch with low stickiness. The wheat ... Read more
We are often asked whether a particular flour that we stock is bleached or unbleached. Bleaching is a chemical process to make what might be off-white flours whiter, for aesthetic reasons and also for some performance benefits. All European/UK flour is unbleached by law even though some might be labelled unbleached actually all of it is. Some countries (including US) do bleach flour but we will ... Read more
It’s common today for millers to tell you about the way grain is grown and the accreditation they have for making the claims they do – such as Soil Association, Organic Farmers & Growers, Red Tractor, for example – as many of us do care about how grain is grown, the pesticides and herbicides used, and how this affects agriculture, the land and biodiversity.
Increasingly, the issue of ... Read more
We're sometimes asked questions about rye flour, for example "what's the difference between dark rye and light rye?", and "is all rye flour wholemeal?". Hopefully we can quickly clear up any confusion you might have about rye flour and how it's sometimes labelled. Thanks to Andrew Wilkinson of Gilchester, and baking guru Dan Lepard for their input.
Like wheat flours, rye can be classified by how ... Read more
Emmer (Triticum dicoccum) is an 'ancient grain', native to parts of the Near East, where it formed part of the diet of hunter-gatherers before becoming domesticated by 7000BCE. It arose as a hybrid between a wild variety of einkorn and an annual goatgrass. It was cultivated in Britain by around 2000BCE, but almost universally it was eventually replaced by higher-yielding grain varieties, though it ... Read more
