Pastry Flour
What it is
A low-protein soft-wheat flour sitting between cake and all-purpose. Fine, soft, usually unbleached and slightly cream-colored.
How it's made
Milled from soft wheat to roughly 8–9% protein, finely ground, generally without chlorine bleaching.
Flavor profile
Clean, lightly wheaty.
Culinary uses
The pastry-maker's flour: pie dough, tarts, scones, biscuits, cookies, and quick breads where you want tenderness and flakiness but a little more handling strength than cake flour offers. Enough gluten to hold a pie crust together; little enough to keep it short and tender.
Regional variations
"Italian 00 pastry/cake" grades and French "farine de gruau" or soft-wheat T45 occupy adjacent niches, though those are graded by ash/grind rather than protein alone.
Cultural & historical context
Where cake flour is an industrial product, pastry flour is closer to what traditional soft-wheat regions (much of the American South, parts of Europe) simply called "flour" — the everyday flour of cultures that ate more pastry and biscuit than crusty bread.
Reference notes
Tags: `wheat`, `contains-gluten`, `low-protein`, `pastry`. Related ingredients: [Cake Flour], [All-Purpose Flour]. Related cuisines: American, French. Suggested links: → Flaky vs. mealy pie dough, → Cake Flour.