OFF THE SHELF
Flour power gives baked goods just the right touch

White Lily flour is a low-gluten brand popular for making biscuits. Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser

The bottom line: Not all flours are the same. The further you get into baking, the more you will seek out specialty flours. Here's a basic guide to wheat flours:

All-purpose flour: A blend of wheat types adequate for most home uses.

Bleached, unbleached: To produce a very white flour — for cosmetic reasons, mostly — chemical agents may be used to whiten the pigments in the flour. Bleach-ed and unbleached flours are interchangeable in recipes.

Bread flour: Made primarily from varieties of hard wheat that are high in glutenin. Glutenin, or gluten, is the spongy, elastic protein that forms bubbles around gases emitted by yeast growing in the dough; these cause the bread to puff up and rise. This flour generally is unbleached and also contains malted barley (to feed the yeast) and vitamin C or potassium bromide (to promote rising).

Cake flour: Bleached, very white, very finely milled flour made primarily from soft wheats that are lower in glutenin and higher in starch, creating delicate, fine-textured and spongy-soft baked goods.

Instant flour ("gravy flour"): A fine, white, granular flour, of which Wondra is the best-known brand; doesn't clump when used to thicken gravies or stews.

Whole-grain flour: Includes the germ (the sprouting part) of the grain, and some of the bran (the outer coating); therefore naturally rich in fiber and nutrients. Store in refrigerator or freezer; higher oil content makes this flour prone to rancidity.