The best flour for the job

There is a flour to suit every taste and occasion, whether you need a creamy, white flour for bread making, a coarser, wholemeal stone ground for a rich fruitcake, or a fine, light sponge flour.  Different makes of flour have unique characteristics depending on the wheat used and the way they are milled.  Stock up with a broad selection of flours and you will always have just the right type for all cooking and baking needs. 

• Plain flour - also known as all-purpose. Use for short crust pastry, batters, sauces, gravies, fruit cakes and shortbread where a raising agent is not required.
• Self-raising - Flour to which a raising agent has been evenly mixed. This flour is ideal for cakes, scones, pudding, suet, pastry, tea breads and biscuits. You can make your own-self-raising flour by mixing plain flour with baking powder.  You need to add two level tsps of baking powder to every 225g (8oz) of plain flour.                                                                             
• Soft flour - a soft white flour which has been milled very finely to give sponges, cake and scones a higher rise and finer texture.
• Strong flour - a flour with a high protein content providing a high volume and open texture. Ideal for bread whether made by hand or in a bread maker and all types of yeast cookery, Yorkshire puddings, pizza bases and puff pastry.
• Wholemeal – 100% extraction, made from the whole wheat grain with nothing added or taken away.
• Brown – usually contains about 85% of the original grain.  Some bran and germ have been removed.
• White – usually 75% of the wheatgrain.  Most of the bran and wheatgerm have been removed before milling.
• Wheatgerm – white or brown flour with at least 10% added wheatgerm.
• Malted wheatgrain – brown or wholemeal flour with added malted grains for a distinctive nutty flavour and texture.  Ideal for bread, pizza bases, rolls, scones and tea breads.
• Stoneground – wholemeal flour ground in traditional way, between 2 stones.
• Flour mixes/pre-packed mixes - ready prepared mixes of flour with other ingredients which help you make bread, cake or biscuits more quickly.  You can find these at all major supermarkets.
• Spelt – a nutty flavoured flour made from grain spelt which can be used on its own or mixed with wheat flour.