Sunday, May 12, 2002


you may remember my high-protein flour pizza crust recipe. . .

i didn't manage to make ciabatta this weekend -- soon, tho, i promise, soon, and then i'll post the recipe! -- but i did make a fortuituous substitution in my standard high-protein recipe above. . .

i think a perfect pizza crust should be not too thin, not too thick, with a delicious taste, and plenty of chew. if it has so much air that the crust bubbles up while baking, that's perfection.

and i made such a crust, using my standard recipe above, but replacing 5 oz. of the king arthur sir lancelot flour with first clear flour. what is clear flour? in one sense, it's grade b flour, a product made after the more generally desirable flour like cake, bread or all-purpose flour (known among bakers as "patent flour") is taken from the ground wheat. what this means is that it has a lot of gluten -- for chew -- and a lot of minerals (ash) for great flavor.

first clear is a darker beige color, and has a deeper wheaty taste, than patent flours. it's traditionally used in rye breads, to give rye the gluten it needs for good loft and lovely toothsomeness. what's left after the patent and first clear is gone is a tough, lower-quality stuff known as "second clear," which is used for things like dog biscuits.

common first clear flours are iron duke by general mills and what i use, king arthur's first clear flour.

i loved this pizza crust so much, i may add first clear flour into it from now on. it seemed to add almost a flakiness to the deeply brown-baked edges of the crust, as well as huge flavor and great texture. plus its darker color made the pizza look more appetizing, more like a brick oven product.

note well however: first clear flour is stretchy and chewy -- you may find it makes the pizza a tad more difficult to roll out as the first clear flour increases the tendency of the dough to spring back when rolled. but the end result is well worth it, i'm finding. . .

posted by fortune | 7:35 PM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments