The thing that most Americans want to know when they talk about French flour is: what can they do to approximate French “Type 55″ flour? That’s the kind that’s most commonly used for baguettes and even many pastries (it’s akin to an American all-purpose). That’s an extremely difficult thing to do for reasons I discussed below in the post “What’s the deal with ash content?”. However there several other important differences between American and French flour that make a direct equivalent an all-but-impossible to thing to formulate using commonly available components.
But Joe, flour is just ground-up wheat, how different can the two really be? The answer might surprise you. For one, French flour is milled and mixed to different standards compared to American flour. Typical French bread flours, as I mentioned at the beginning of this long series of posts, are what are known as “straight” flours. A straight flour is what you get when you grind a wheat berry, remove most of the bran and germ and a) don’t sift it into lots of different grades and b) don’t mix it together with other grades from other batches (as American millers usually do). The result is a flour that’s coarser than a normal American bread or all-purpose flour.
The character of the protein (gluten) is also quite different in a French flour, not nearly as elastic as the kind you find in American flour. Though French Type 55 flours routinely list a protein content of around 11.5 percent, they perform more like a medium-protein American flour, around 9.5 percent. That puts them on par, as I mentioned before, with American all-purpose flours. Plenty of bakers try to replicate baguettes or other French breads with high-gluten flours (or mixtures of low and high gluten flours) but the experts are mostly in agreement that too much American gluten is bad for a good French bread.
So when you get right down to it, there’s not much about American and French flours that are the same, other than the fact that they’re all flours. They’re different types of wheat grown in different places, under different conditions, then processed differently and milled differently. The end result is that they behave differently from one another in the same types of applications. Does that mean it’s a hopeless task to try to make a good baguette out of American flour? By no means. Simply select a good, hard all-purpose flour (preferably a Northern one made from a hard red winter wheat) and you’re at as good a starting point as any baker on this continent.
I came across your blog looking for a good explanation as for why French flour behaves differently than American. This is great and I really love your blog!
Question: I stayed at a b&b in France where the owner tried to make an American pancake recipe with French flour (I don’t know which type exactly) but it didn’t turn out so well. Can you tell me anything about converting an American recipe to French resources? Or better yet, do you have a recipe for fluffy, American-style pancakes that uses French flour?
Hi Rachael!
Thanks for the question. The French have trouble with flapjacks, muffins and cookies for the same reason we have problems with their crusty breads: the base components are just too different. Lack of stretchy gluten is the issue, and there’s not a lot the can be done about that. They can try using bread flour, that will probably help. Otherwise you can try sending them a bottle of vital wheat gluten from a health food store. A little of that in the mix might fix the problem.
That’s my best suggestion! Cheers,
- Joe
a Northern one made from a hard red winter wheat is what you said about picking a good flour, I am in Texas, so what brand are you suggesting?
Hey Phylli!
Most national brand flours are hard northern wheat. Just avoid the White Lily or small local labels in your locale and you’ll be fine. King Arthur makes a lot of great flours, most of them from harder wheats. They’re available all over now, I believe.
- Joe