Can I use bread flour in non-bread recipes?

Liz_M

Hi,

I'm very much a lurker and browse here a lot, so really not got the hang of posting in the right place - apologies if this is not the right place, obviously please feel free to move/merge etc if necessary! I've tried searching for answers to this but I can only find the question asked the other way around (whether normal flour works for bread).

I've got some bread flour in my cupboard which needs to be gone. There's most of a bag of white, and most of a bag of wholemeal but both are bread flours. They're probably out of date but I've not looked as I don't care - I'll make sure there's none of those little bugs and then go ahead and use it.

I might have a go at making a loaf of white bread but realistically I'm not going to make enough to use it up. So I wondered if it will ruin things if I use it in the place of normal plain flour?

I'm going to make a crumble today and I've heard wholemeal flour makes a nice crumble topping so was hoping I could use some of the wholemeal bread flour for this? I assume with something like a crumble it wouldn't make too much difference (hopefully someone can put my mind at rest with this, but if not I might give it a go and cross my fingers)... but when it comes to cakes etc, will they be horrible using bread flour?

moneyistooshorttomention

I certainly don't think twice about it.

My flour is wholemeal flour bought specifically for breadmaking, but if I want flour in any other recipe then that's what I use for that as well.

For crumble topping its not as if you would be using more than an ounce or two anyway and I've certainly made crumble topping with that myself before now and its been fine.

Personally, I also use that same flour for cakes as well. I know some people prefer to use a proportion of white and of wholemeal in things like pastry (in order for it not to be too "heavy"), but personally I just use the same for the lot.

trailingspouse

Whatever you make is likely to turn out 'different' from normal - but it'll be edible, so go ahead. Alternatively, you could try mixing bread flour and your normal flour 1/2 and 1/2, thus using up your bread flour without compromising too much.

Liz_M

Thanks, I've done the crumble already it was fine! I mixed the flour with oats too just because I like them but don't think it would have made much difference either way!

The fact that it's wholemeal doesn't bother me, it's the fact that it's 'strong' flour for bread - from what I've read that just means it has more gluten in so it helps the bread to rise... just a bit worried in case it changes the texture of cakes/pastry etc. I guess things might be a little more chewy and a little less crumbly but they should still be edible so will probably give it a go next time I'm baking (unless an expert comes along and says it will be horrible!)

Liz_M

Thanks trailingspouse, think I was typing as you replied! The half and half this is a good idea - I sort of did that with my crumble as I was being a wimp so I used 50g plain white/50g wholemeal strong/50g oats. I think next time for a crumble I'll probably just go with 100g wholemeal strong/50g oats but for cakes etc I might stick to the half and half so if things are a bit different they're not TOO different

nuatha

Bread flour typically has a 14 - 16% protein content and general purpose
flour: 10 - 12%, so there isn't a huge difference. Specialist cake flours can run as low as 6% protein. But as most people bake with general purpose flours then you shouldn't notice too much difference.
HTH