Manitoba flour: characteristics, application

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Before you start baking the product, you need to purchase baking flour. But it’s not enough to buy the first package that comes across - you need to know what kind of result you want to get at the final stage of preparing a culinary creation.

The fact is that flour is not just a product obtained by grinding grains of various cereal crops. It has its own characteristics and differences. Most often, we use pastries made from wheat flour, but there are other varieties of grinding cereals. Wheat flour is divided into soft and hard varieties. Knowing all this, how do you know which flour is best for baking?

Varieties of flour varieties

Any nutritionist will tell you with certainty that the use of flour products should be in moderation. The thing is that flour contains fast carbohydrates, which are absorbed by the body very quickly, making it feel hungry before the necessary time. Another feature of such carbohydrates is that they are able to be deposited in the layers of subcutaneous fat and accumulate there. This leads to unwanted fullnessperson. Consider below several varieties of baking flour, which we know far from everything:

• Rye flour contains many amino acids that are essential for metabolic processes in the body. Also, a large amount of dietary fiber is a complete protein, which is so important for humans. It is rich in B vitamins, phosphorus, complex carbohydrates and calcium. People with gastrointestinal problems should consume small amounts of rye flour products.
• Rice flour. The peculiarity of this cereal is that there is almost no gluten in it. It is useful for all ages and contains 1% fiber, biotin, zinc, amylopectin.
• Buckwheat flour is used in the diet menu for people suffering from low hemoglobin levels, liver diseases, hypertension and atherosclerosis. It is popular due to the presence in the composition of a large number of trace elements, lysine and leucine.
• Oatmeal has a small amount of starch, easy to digest. Helps normalize blood sugar and regulates fat metabolism.
• Cornmeal. It contains more sugar than wheat flour. As well as B vitamins, magnesium, calcium, iron, phosphorus. Recommended cereals and its grinding for people with cardiovascular diseases and diseases of the biliary tract.

Wheat flours

As we already know, wheat flour is made from hard and soft varieties. Consider how they differ from each other.

• Soft wheat varieties - grinding from cereals, whichcalled "00 flour" or "type 00". This is the simplest flour among the other varieties. Soft wheat flour is suitable for almost all culinary dishes, it has a wide range of uses in cooking. Marking "00" indicates a very fine grind. A flour product with such grinding is very quickly digested in the human gastrointestinal tract.
• Durum wheat is used to make pasta and breading fish, meat or other products. This flour contains more protein and fiber than soft wheat varieties. And it is indispensable when baking bread.

But what kind of flour is better, only you yourself can answer, based on your goals and wishes.

Flour products from soft wheat varieties

For professional bakers, Manitoba wheat flour has a special meaning. It is made from soft wheat varieties that have been grown in Canada in the province of Manitoba. But since it has received its wide use in Italian cuisine, many believe that this is an Italian product. Of course, it is produced in many European countries, including Italy, but Canada is its homeland.

Manitoba flour is called "strong" by many professionals, as it contains a large amount of protein (up to 18%, when ordinary soft flour has no more than 11.5%) and has strong water absorption (up to 80% of its weight). Thus, a much larger amount of dough can be obtained from a small amount of flour.

Feature of bread flour

We already know that Manitoba flour is a strong flour. It is this characteristic that provides bakery products with good qualities. For example, Italian bakers use this type of flour to make high-end cupcakes. Even a slight addition of this grinding to ordinary soft flour - and bakery creations become real culinary masterpieces.

When in contact with water, manitoba forms a lot of gluten, due to the presence of gluten and gliadin in its composition. For this reason, the fermentation process starts: on its surface, you can see the formation of small bubbles in large numbers. Thanks to this feature, the dough is ideal for baking bread, pizza or other products where a fermentation process is necessary.

What is prepared with Manitoba flour

This flour is ideal for baking bread and pizza. And where else did she find her culinary use? First of all, this is a confectionery path. Sweet fluffy buns, sweet cakes (like panettone is a Milanese Christmas cake, pandoro is a Christmas cake with powdered sugar), donuts, croissants, hash browns, muffins, tortillas and more.

If you knead the dough on flour with a low level of gluten, the fermentation process will be longer and the dough will rise for a long time. Some bakers use manitoba as an addition to weak flours, with a small amount of yeast added. This slows down the rise rate of the dough (up to 2 days) and makes the baked goods crispier and softer. This technique is used in the process of creating pizza. Herewhy Italians use the manitoba so much.

In closing

Manitoba flour from soft wheat varieties undergoes the strictest quality control at every stage of its production. From the moment of sowing wheat to its production. But this is exactly what ensures quality pastries on your table!

It tastes great and has the right color and texture. It is for this reason that the dough made from this type of flour can rise so high and provide fluffiness to the baked product. Whatever you cook with Manitoba flour, your baked goods will be the most praiseworthy, with amazing taste and quality.