Foods and home making

(a) Take a small bit of fine white flour between your thumb and finger. Does the flour feel soft, i.e., free from grit? If so, it is probably pastry flour. (b) Try another test on this flour to make sure it is pastry flour. Take a small amount of flour in the palm of your hand. Close your hand tightly, pressing your fingers on the flour. Now open your fingers. Does most of the flour remain in a mass, so that the impression of the fingers is left on the flour? If so, you have an additional proof that the flour is pastry flour. (c) Repeat (a), using a flour which is cream-colored. Does the flour feel gritty? If so, it is probably bread flour. (d) Repeat ( b ), testing the kind of flour used in (c). When you open your hand, do the particles of flour fall apart so that there is no impression of your fingers on the flour ? If so, you have an additional proof that the flour is bread flour. (e) State two tests for pastry flour. (/) State two tests for bread flour. (g) What is the difference in the color of pastry and bread flour? How should flour be selected at the store? There are several well-known brands of flour, both pastry and bread, any of which will be quite satisfactory for home use. Since most mills manufacture both pastry and bread flour, it is important for you to look carefully at the label on the sack when delivery is made. Pastry flour is sometimes called soft wheat flour. Some persons think that pastry flour is used only for cakes. Pastry flour may be used for almost all flour mix- tures which do not contain yeast. It is advisable to use pastry flour for muffins, baking-powder biscuits, corn bread, cakes, and pies. Toast and Other Breakfast Breads 81 How much flour should one buy ? Although flour is put up in small bags or packages it costs less a pound when bought in bags weighing at least 24^ pounds. A bag of that weight is known as ^ barrel. Flour may be bought in : 24 \ pound bags (| barrel) 98 pound bags (| barrel) 49 pound bags (| barrel) 196 pounds (one barrel) Although a barrel of flour costs less a pound than a fraction of a barrel, it is not always advisable to buy flour in barrel or half-barrel lots. The quantity of flour purchased at one time should depend upon the amount of baking done in the home and the means of storing the flour in the home. When flour comes from the market, the sack should be emptied into a tin box or canister. The flour container should have a tightly fitting cover. The tightly covered tin can prevents mice and some insects from getting into the flour. The flour canisters in most homes do not hold more than 25 or 50 pounds of flour. Even if flour is kept in a tightly covered canister, small insects known as weevils may appear in it. For this reason it is well not to buy flour in such large quantities that it will last for a long time. Weevils in flour develop more rapidly in warm weather than in cold. This makes it advisable in some localities to buy flour in smaller quantity in the summer than in the winter.