Unbleached vs. Bleached Flour—What's the Difference? (2024)

FAQs

Unbleached vs. Bleached Flour—What's the Difference? ›

Bleached flour is whiter and has a softer texture. It produces fluffy baked goods, making it a good match for cookies, pie crusts, and pancakes. Unbleached flour is less white and has a denser consistency. It tends to be best for baked goods that require structure, like yeast breads, eclairs, and pastries.

Bleached flour makes baked goods more consistent. They also have a better texture and rise better. Unbleached flour is good for creating a very compact and dense loaf of bread, but that's typically its only advantage.

Concerns about the potential toxicity of bleaching agents led the European Community to forbid their use in the 1990s, while China and Turkey have also banned them in recent years. Still, benzoyl peroxide remains legal in many other countries, [End Page 149] such as Canada and the United States.

Because it hasn't been put through the same chemical treatments, unbleached flour can have a more dense grain. Since it also takes longer for unbleached flour to be produced (the waiting time and storage add costs for the manufacturer), it often is more expensive than its bleached counterpart.

Cakes: For light, delicate cakes like yellow cake, angel food cake, and chiffon cake, use bleached flour, especially when the recipe calls for cake flour. For sturdier cakes like carrot cake, pumpkin loaves, quick breads, and muffins that can tolerate a denser texture, use either bleached or unbleached.

Bleached flour is typically refined, meaning that the nutrient-rich bran and germ of the wheat kernel have been removed, stripping the grain of many of its valuable vitamins and minerals and leaving only the endosperm.

American bread is banned in Europe because of certain chemicals that are considered carcinogens. The European Union (EU) has strict food safety regulations that prohibit the use of specific additives and ingredients found in some American food products, including bread.

Our go-to in the test kitchen is Gold Medal Unbleached All-Purpose Flour, which has a moderate protein content. You can also successfully use a high-protein all-purpose flour, such as King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour.

To thicken sauces or dredge chicken breasts and the like, it's fine to use either one. Professional bakers will likely use unbleached, but just use what your recipe calls for as bleaching alters flours' protein structure which can affect a recipe's outcome.

Why is American flour bleached? ›

Generally speaking, advantages of flour bleaching agents include: Flour whitening (all bleaching agents) Improved viscosity of cake batter and production of larger, softer and more cohesive pancakes (mainly chlorine-based bleaching agents) Possibility of formulating doughs/batters with less flour (chlorine gas)

If you're planning on cooking pizza at home, the most important tip is to choose unbleached flour. However, here are some more tips below on using unbleached flour: While it's true that bread flour has a higher rise and crispier crust, unbleached flour retains a more subtle flavor. Besides, it's healthier for you.

What you get—instead of those chemical bleaching agents—is flour from superior grains grown by farmers we trust. Our flour is carefully milled according to the strictest specifications that we've developed over generations to give you the best, most consistent results at home. Not a bad trade-off if you ask us!

Cake Flour: The flour with the lowest protein content (5 to 8 percent). The relative lack of gluten-forming proteins makes cake flour ideal for tender baked goods, such as cakes (of course), but also biscuits, muffins and scones.

If you're planning on cooking pizza at home, the most important tip is to choose unbleached flour. However, here are some more tips below on using unbleached flour: While it's true that bread flour has a higher rise and crispier crust, unbleached flour retains a more subtle flavor. Besides, it's healthier for you.

To thicken sauces or dredge chicken breasts and the like, it's fine to use either one. Professional bakers will likely use unbleached, but just use what your recipe calls for as bleaching alters flours' protein structure which can affect a recipe's outcome.

What Flour Should I Be Feeding My Sourdough Starter With? You can feed your sourdough starter with any flour you like, as long as it provides the starches the wild yeast in your sourdough starter need to convert to Co2 to rise your dough. The flour you choose should always be unbleached flour.