Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with flour

Barley?

gjc — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:52:24 -0800

Spurred by a recent flour question: why does some flour have barley in it, and some doesn't? And why? And what are the qualitative differences (flavor, texture) between the two?

When were insects eliminated from flour?

tnygard — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 12:51:46 -0800

Hi all, I am doing some writing on the history of baking, and I was wondering when flour became pure. We take for granted the fact that flour in our grocery stores is free from insect larvae, twigs, and other contaminants. I have heard that the purpose of sifting flour was once to get this stuff out. Now we sift for nostalgia's sake or possibly to make flour fluffy. I want to say that flour became pure with the advent of large flour millers in the 19th century like Wasburn-Crosby and Pillsbury (both now are part of General Mills). But that is just a guess. When did things really get cleaned up? Do any of you foodies and bakers know? Thanks!

Looking for home storage solutions for bulk items such as flour, sugar, rice.

jeremias — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 05:10:34 -0800

Looking for home storage solutions for bulk items such as flour, sugar, rice. My SO went full steam ahead at Costco, and now we have enormous bags of rice, flour, sugar, etc. The problem is we don't have much storage space in the kitchen and at some point we actually have to open the bags: at which point we will need to store them.

So I'm looking for containers that will hold 15-25 lbs and can be stored efficiently, also varmint/insect proof obviously. Also, *where* do I store them? We have some space in the basement, the temp is steady down there but it's also on the humid side.

Is it possible for gluten to transfer into the air and harm a celiacs sufferer?

isopropyl — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 23:24:02 -0800

Is it possible for gluten to transfer into the air and harm a celiacs sufferer? I work at a pizza franchise and they use a semolina and flour based product to coat the dough for tossing and prepping. I was recently diagnosed with celiacs disease and I'm trying to figure out if this could be adding to my continuous health problems. Could the gluten transfer to the air and be harmful to me through my lungs instead of my stomach? The manager did inform me that the flour and semolina is constantly in the air and ventilation because of the high volume of pizza tossing flour flying everywhere.

Not self-raising flour

popcassady — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 04:40:29 -0800

Can self-raising flour be turned into plain flour? It's boxing day and I have no plain flour for my yorkshire pudding.

I have a load of self-raising flour though. Is there any way I can 'neutralise' the self-raising part?

Vinegar?

Arepa flour in NYC?

riffola — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 14:04:45 -0800

Where can I buy masa precocida or masarepa (corn flour for Arepas) in subway accessible parts of NYC? Also what kind is better for homemade arepas?

Not the King Biscuit Flour Hour...

stefnet — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 11:47:32 -0800

I have a vague memory of some show airing during the early 1980s that I think was sponsored by Robin Hood Flour or maybe King Arthur Flour. I have little to no recollection of what happened on the show (some sort of baking challenge for kids maybe?) but I know that I would watch it around lunchtime when I had half-days of kindergarten. It could have been either a PBS or CBC show as we got CKWS out of Kingston, Ont. in my village in Upstate NY. Robin Hood Flour sounds right, so I'm leaning toward it being a Canadian show. Does this ring any bells with anyone?

tsampa in tsydney

taff — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 06:45:21 -0800

where can i get tsampa in sydney? or failing that, how can i make it myself? the roasted flour, that is, not the porridgey dishy things.

"he who must obey" is tibetan, so can do that part hisself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsampa

i'm happy to do the postal thang too if necessary. but i gather that it would be easiest to source it locally.

normally i'd ask the tibetan community for this kind of info... but they seem to get it from tibet/dharamsala.... and it is a major pain in the bum to get a hold of. not to mention, expensive.

"he who must obey" is getting all nostalgic for mum's cooking... so it's time to rock some tsampa.

if it's just roasted barley flour... and i end up having to create it from barley.... would one roast the barley, then turn it to flour, or get barley flour, then roast the flour? (told you i knew nothin'!) and if i have to turn something in to flour... how do i do that? and if i have to roast barley... how do i do THAT?

sorry to be so verbose but you really need to fully comprehend my ignorance... and explain everything in idiotic detail. i have an oven and a convection microwave... and a little food processory thing.
thanks folks, you rock...(in advance)

oh crud... did i mention that i was in sydneyland australia?

Needing the Dough on Dough!

goalyeehah — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 14:12:54 -0800

Calling all food scientists and breadophiles!!!! Clear flour contains which proteins and at what percentages? I am asking this question for a breadmaker friend of mine. Clear flour is the first endosperm flour high in protein. He has found that he cannot make good bread from just clear flour alone. He is curious as to the proteins that it does have and at what amounts. He thinks that the percentages of albumin and globulin are high. That is why the bread doesn't rise as much and lacks prolamin and glutalin. Regular bread has .5% albumin. .5% globulin, 6% prolamin and 6% glutalin. (all together 13%)

to re-use the dusting flour?

jclovebrew — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 20:08:46 -0800

Should I put the flour used to dust the counter and/or pizza peel back in the bag? So I'm a wanna-be baker lately, making pizza and breads. For the first several experiments, I ended up throwing away the extra flour that I used to dust the countertop and pizza peel. But it seems that over time, this would add up to a big waste. Starting yesterday, I decided to start keeping that extra stuff in a separate container, with the idea that I would use flour from the container, not the bag, to dust the counter and the peel from now on.

What do people typically do? Is it ok to just put it all the extra back in the main bag?

how to wash out flour?

iloveit — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:15:03 -0800

How do I wash flour out of my towels? What do I do with the towels I use for breadmaking? I have some flour sack towels that are covered in copious amounts of flour. Dough has stuck to some of them and dried into a hard mass. I'd like to wash them out and reuse them, but I'm worried about making a batch of wheat-paste in my washing machine. How do I wash these things without making a bigger mess than I started with?

What to do with evil white flour?

zippity — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 08:50:58 -0800

What can I do with 10 pounds of white flour? Besides making a boatload of cookies, of course. As usual, there's I recently came upon 10 pounds of white flour. Not just any white flour, but white flour that expired two months ago.

I would feel extremely guilty to use this flour for making snacks and giving them away to unsuspecting people (unless there is no real difference in recently expired flour vs fresh flour??). And the idea of making so many unhealthy treats out of such a nearly nutrition-less food that many people should not be consuming as much of anyway makes me feel like the spawn of Satan.

What would make me feel guiltier more so would be to just throw away perfectly good (expired, but usable!) white flour.

What I'm looking for are creative and useful (er.. no suggestions of making a trap that drops a ten pound bucket of flour onto someone walking into a door) ways to use up this flour without resorting to using it to make food. All suggestions are welcome!

Simple recipes with flour

raydexter — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 06:04:20 -0800

I've got a 10lb bag of all purpose flour. What easy-to-prepare foods can I make with it? I've also got some eggs, milk and sugar but not a lot of other ingredients in the apartment. I don't have a breadmaker either, but I've got some baking trays. Simple recipe suggestions would be awesome.

Wholesale Flour in Washington DC

The White Hat — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 14:33:01 -0800

I would like to buy a 25-50 lb sack of flour in NWDC. The only place I can think of is Costco in Tenleytown, and I'm not a member. I'm limited to metro-accessible areas. Bonus points if it's unbleached white or whole wheat.

Cheap source for unusual flours

rxrfrx — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 07:54:05 -0800

I'm looking for an economical source for small quantities of various flours, online or brick and mortar in the Boston area. I've recently gotten quite seriously into baking, and in a lot of applications, the usual King Arthur all-purpose and bread flours (available at the supermarket) just aren't cutting it. I dropped $20 to buy some Sir Lancelot high-gluten and European-Style "artisan" flour at KA's Baker's Catalogue online. The flour is of an OK price for 3-pound bags, but shipping really kills it. Nearly $2/lb for flour seems excessive.

In the interest of flavor and texture, I need a good source for things like clear flour, rye flour, and high-gluten flour. Ideally, the flour would cost no more than about $0.90/lb. The other problem is that I don't want to take delivery of 50-pound bags. Maybe 15 pounds at a time, maximum?

I'm in the Boston area and would drive a little bit to find a place that retails these relatively small quantities... or is there a cheap online source for these types of flour?