Bread Flour
What it is
A high-protein white wheat flour, milled from hard red or hard white wheat. Sold as a fine, slightly off-white powder that feels marginally grittier between the fingers than cake flour.
How it's made
The bran and germ are sieved out (it is a refined "white" flour), leaving the starchy endosperm of hard, high-protein wheat. Some bread flours are malted (a touch of malted barley flour added) to feed yeast and improve browning.
Flavor profile
Clean, mildly wheaty, neutral. Its job is structural, not aromatic.
Culinary uses
Anything that needs a strong, extensible gluten network to trap gas over a long fermentation: rustic hearth loaves, bagels, baguettes, pizza, brioche, cinnamon rolls. The high protein (typically 12–14%) hydrates into abundant gluten, giving chew and oven spring. It can do structure; it cannot do tenderness — use it for a cake and you get something tough and bready.
Regional variations
North American bread flour leans on hard red winter/spring wheat. UK "strong flour" or "strong white bread flour" is the equivalent. "Very strong" or "extra strong" Canadian flour pushes protein toward 14–15% for the chewiest results.
Cultural & historical context
The deliberate separation of flours by strength is a relatively modern, industrial idea. For most of history a baker used whatever the local mill produced and adapted technique to the flour. Roller milling (late 19th century) made it cheap to isolate the endosperm and standardize protein, which is what made consistent commercial bread possible.
Reference notes
Tags: `wheat`, `contains-gluten`, `high-protein`, `structure-builder`, `pantry-staple`. Related ingredients: [Vital Wheat Gluten], [All-Purpose Flour], [00 Flour]. Related cuisines: American, French, Italian, Jewish (bagels). Suggested links: → Gluten development, → Fermentation & leavening, → Baguette.