Bread Flour

A few months back, I decided to learn how to mill my own flour at home. After extensive research, I discovered that one essential ingredient needed to make bread with my home-milled flour was "vital wheat gluten." Luckily, I managed to find it at the Amish market I visit a few times a year.

Some bread recipes aren't suitable for home-milled whole wheat flour, making bread flour essential. Bread flour is a high-protein wheat flour (usually 12–14% protein) intended to enhance gluten development, resulting in chewier and taller loaves. If you're like me and don't have the space to store multiple types of flour in your pantry, don't fret. With all-purpose flour and vital wheat gluten, you can make your own bread flour.

Sounds too easy, right? That is what I thought, then I remembered that sometimes, less is more, and complicated doesn't mean practical.

Here is a simple way to make bread flour at home.

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons vital wheat gluten

Directions:

Measure one cup of all-purpose flour.

I need 3 cups of bread flour for my next recipe, so I measured 3 cups of all-purpose flour

I removed 4 1/2 teaspoons of the flour

Remove 1½ teaspoons or 4 grams of all-purpose flour.

Then add 1½ teaspoons or 5 grams of wheat gluten on top of the all-purpose flour.

I added 4 1/2 teaspoons of vital wheat gluten to my all-purpose flour

Wheat gluten is heavier than flour which is why there is a difference in grams between wheat gluten and all-purpose flour.

Then sift the flour and wheat gluten together.

Do this one more time just to be certain the flour and wheat gluten are evenly distributed.

That’s it, your cup of homemade bread flour is done.