Scuola di MarcoBakery bread, made in your kitchen.
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Scuola di Marco

Flours

What each flour does in a dough, with the equivalence across the Italian, French, Spanish, Brazilian and American systems.

Ceramic bowl of fine white wheat flour on a wooden counter, with wheat ears beside it Flour

Manitoba

It is the strongest flour on the shelf and the most misused. It is made for doughs that ferment a long time and carry a …

Round semolina loaf cut open on a dark board, showing a deep golden crumb and thick crust, next to a bowl of fine semolina Flour

Semolina

It is not ordinary flour milled coarse. It is a different species of wheat, with different gluten and a different colour…

Dark rye tin loaf sliced on grey stone, showing a tight moist crumb, next to a mound of medium rye flour with bran flecks Flour

Rye flour

Rye is not dark wheat. It is a different cereal, and it does not build a gluten network. Almost everything you learned a…

100% whole wheat tin loaf sliced on a wooden board, close brown crumb flecked with bran, next to stone-ground wholemeal flour Flour

Whole wheat flour

It has more protein on the label and less gluten in the dough, at the same time. That is not a contradiction: they are t…

Oval spelt loaf with a pale crust on linen cloth, one slice cut showing a soft close crumb, next to a dish of beige spelt flour Flour

Spelt flour

It carries more protein than ordinary flour and makes a shorter loaf. The problem is not how much gluten there is: it is…

Bowl of greyish buckwheat flour flecked with dark hull specks, on a wooden counter Flour

Buckwheat flour

It is not wheat, and not even a grass. That single fact explains the missing gluten, the blank strength figures on the b…

Ceramic bowl filled with fine white bread flour on a wooden kitchen counter, with a light dusting of flour beside it Flour

Bread flour

Bread flour runs around 12.7% protein, all-purpose around 11.7%, and that single point is why the same recipe gives a ta…

Bowl of einkorn flour on a wooden counter, pale gold and cream in the light Flour

Einkorn flour

Einkorn carries more protein than most bread flours and almost none of the strength: the mill that measures W 280 on its…

Pale beige vital wheat gluten powder, fibrous looking, in a small bowl on a wooden counter Flour

Vital wheat gluten

The shelf sells it as vital wheat gluten flour. It is not a flour: it is the protein of wheat, washed out of a dough, dr…

Bowl of very fine white flour on a wooden counter, with a disc of pizza dough resting beside it Flour

00 flour

In Italy, 00 is a legal ceiling on ash, 0.55% on dry matter, plus a protein floor of 9%. It says nothing about strength.…

Ceramic bowl of fine white flour with a wooden scoop, a ball of pizza dough resting beside it on the floured counter Flour

Pizza flour

Buying pizza flour means choosing strength, and strength comes down to two things: how long the dough will ferment and h…

Ceramic bowl of fine white all-purpose wheat flour on a light wooden kitchen counter, with a scattering of flour beside it Flour

All-purpose flour

All-purpose is the flour that does most things and masters none, which is exactly why one bag covers most of home baking…

Bowl of pale, fine almond flour beside whole blanched almonds on a wooden bench, with a sieve and macarons in the background Flour

Almond flour

It is not flour in the milled-cereal sense. It is raw almonds ground to a powder, and that changes everything: no gluten…

Wheat loaf made with barley flour, sliced on a dark board, showing a dark dense crumb, next to a bowl of wholegrain barley flour Flour

Barley flour

Barley is not wheat, and its flour will not make bread on its own. It has gluten, but a weak gluten that does not build …

Bowl of fine white coconut flour beside halves of fresh coconut on a pale bench, with a sieve and a dense cake in the background Flour

Coconut flour

It is not flour in the milled-cereal sense. It is coconut meat dried, pressed to strip out the fat and ground to a powde…

Tall slice of fluffy white cake on a pale plate, showing a fine even crumb, next to a bowl of sifted cake flour Flour

Farinha para bolo

It is not just plain flour milled finer. It is low-protein soft wheat, almost always treated with chlorine, and it is th…

Bowl of pale yellow chickpea flour beside dried chickpeas on a wooden bench, with a golden socca cut open in the background Flour

Chickpea flour

It builds no gluten. No W strength, no network, and that is what decides what it is for and what it is not. This is not …

Bowl of stone-ground emmer flour on a wooden counter, warm tan and cream in the light Flour

Emmer flour

Emmer is the middle of Italy's three farro wheats, and it plays a trick on anyone who trusts the protein figure. The num…

Bowl of stone-ground khorasan flour on a wooden counter, deep golden and warm in the light Flour

Khorasan (Kamut) flour

Khorasan is one of the great ancient wheats, a giant golden kernel with a buttery, sweet, nutty flavour. You will meet i…

Bowl of finely milled oat flour next to rolled oats and a sliced banana bread on a dark board Flour

Oat flour

It is high in protein and still will not raise a loaf on its own. The reason is not how much protein it has, it is the k…

Golden, flaky pie crust on a pale board, next to a bowl of sifted pastry flour Flour

Pastry flour

It is the middle child of the white flours. It comes from the same soft wheat as cake flour, but it skips the chlorine a…

Bowl of fine white flour on a wooden counter, a spoon of baking powder beside it and a plain sponge cake behind Flour

Self-raising flour

It is soft white flour with the chemical raising agent and a pinch of salt already stirred in. No yeast, no fermentation…

Bowl of fine white rice flour on a pale counter, beside raw rice grains and a golden, crisp fried fritter Flour

Rice flour

Rice flour is not a gluten-free stand-in for wheat that you swap in and forget. It carries no gluten at all, so it build…

Mound of pale sorghum flour on a wooden counter, round sorghum grains scattered beside it and a blurred wooden bowl in the background, in window light Flour

Farinha de sorgo

Sorghum flour is milled from the whole grain of Sorghum bicolor, a naturally gluten-free cereal. Its mild flavor and pal…

Ceramic bowl of light brown teff flour on a pale stone counter, with tiny teff grains scattered beside it, in window light Flour

Farinha de teff

Teff flour is milled from the smallest grain in the world, Eragrostis tef, and it always reaches the kitchen wholegrain,…