The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

(Nandana) #1

back down, forcing it to release a puff of flour that’d get all
over my clothes and kitchen. Baking was a chore.
Then I decided to invest in a couple of large, sealable,
wide-mouthed plastic tubs to store basic baking pantry items
such as flours and sugar. This allows me to quickly and
easily scoop up as much flour as I need without making a
mess. These days, I make many more pizzas than I used to.
All of the items in the chart here should be stored in a
cool, dry place, first transferred to a sealed container if
appropriate.


WHOLE WHEAT VERSUS


REFINED WHITE FLOUR


A kernel of wheat is a pretty complicated thing,


but as  far as  cooking is  concerned,  it  can be  divided
into three basic parts: the endosperm, the hull, and
the germ. Whole wheat flour is exactly what it
sounds like—the entire grain from the wheat plant,
ground up. Refined white flour contains only the
starchy, proteinaceous sections from the endosperm,
with all of the hull and germ removed. Why would
anyone want to do that? It’s all about gluten
formation. We’ll be talking quite a bit about gluten
in this book, but for now, all you need to know is that
gluten is the stretchy matrix of proteins that gives
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