All-purpose flour is a staple ingredient found in most kitchens. It is used for a variety of recipes, for baking pies, pastries, cookies, cakes, and other homemade delightful dishes. Pastry flour, believe it or not, is not the same as all-purpose flour.
In fact, it’s more expensive than all-purpose flour and has less protein content as well. It contains less gluten which is an added bonus because it makes pastries lighter and softer than all-purpose flour.
All-purpose flour has more protein which means more gluten. And more gluten when baked makes the texture more bread-like and less tender than pastry flour.
Having said this, I’m sure you’re now wondering, how to make pastry flour at home? Is it possible to replicate the tender and light texture and flavor of pastry flour so you can make all your baked dishes more homemade and healthy?
Learn more about making pastry flour below…
How to Make Pastry Flour?
To make pastry flour at home, you have to break down the ingredient into these components…
Gluten
Flour contains protein out of which comes gluten. Before mixing flour with water, flour contains two protein variants that combine with water and give gluten.
Gluten helps maintain the elasticity and structure of the dough. Gluten is also what keeps bread chewy and soft. But this is for bread, right? The last thing you want is your pastry to taste like bread.
That is why we use pastry flour which has less gluten than all-purpose flour. The average protein content in all-purpose flour is 9.5 to 11-percent. While in pastry flour, it’s 8 to 9% less.
Less Water
Pastry flour uses less water to make a finer dough. All-purpose flour uses more water which means the dough will come out thicker, chewier (after baking), and moist.
A good way to determine how much water does pastry and all-purpose flour take up, you can make two pies – one with pastry dough and the other with all-purpose flour. The chances of the pastry dough being thick are slim. While the all-purpose flour dough will require more water to settle than is actually needed.
What you’ll end up with is a chewy layer of the crust when pies and pastries should be light and airy.
Best Pastry Flour Recipe at Home
Make homemade pastry flour that tastes exactly like store-bought pastry flour. You can do so with…
All-Purpose + Cornstarch
Take a cup of all-purpose flour and keep 2 tablespoons of it aside. This you can add later on if you want more.
Take 2 tablespoons of cornstarch and blend with the all-purpose flour. Since cornstarch has less gluten, it’s the perfect match for the high-gluten flour to make the dough tender, light, and less chewy.
Don’t forget to sift at least twice to blend the cornstarch and all-purpose flour well.
The benefits of sifting both ingredients, even though they are already powdered, is they not only combine well but help make the dough more consistent with the real pastry flour. So it has the proper texture and consistency.
After a few rounds of sifting, the flour might increase in volume, but overall, you’ve got your homemade pastry flour ready!
All-Purpose + Cake Flour
In place of cornstarch, add 2/3 cup of all-purpose flour with 1/3 cup of cake flour. Sift the mixture a couple of times to achieve the pastry flour-like consistency. It will give your pastry a light and tender texture. And you can use this mixture any time you want to make the most delicious and airy pastries or pies from homemade pastry flour.
All-Purpose Flour + Arrowroot
Here’s something interesting that I myself didn’t know I could use until I did!
Arrowroot powder blends well with all-purpose flour. It’s rich, light, and tender to use. It sifts well too. So you can use the same amount of arrowroot powder like cornstarch – that is 2 tablespoons – for one cup of all-purpose flour.
Mix and sift together the ingredients until they are well-blended and look like pastry flour.
Some Tips Before You Go
Self-rising flour, bread flour, and cornmeal are other substitutes for pastry flour if you can’t make or buy it right away. They work just as well. And you can use them for baking loaves of bread, cakes, pastries, and pies.
There is one thing that a lot of you miss out on when talking about pastry flour, or any type of flour in general. And that is storage. How to store flour correctly can significantly impact how long the flour stays fresh.
The last thing you want is to run out of flour when you need it. Or to see it turn into lumps or attract insects. An ingredient as basic as flour should be kept in a dry and cool place inside an airtight seal container or bag.
And, take my advice, no matter how affordable, always buy flour fresh in small quantities. They stay fresh for longer and taste more delicious for delicate recipes like bread, cakes, and pastries.
Fresh flour delays moisture contamination and prevents odor to a greater degree. Storing pastry flour, cake flour, all-purpose flour in this manner will prolong its shelf life. Even though it’s best to cook flour within a month of purchase, you can still keep flour up to a year in a proper and safe manner.
Bugs and odd smells from flour are the number-one sign of spoilage. This happens when you either do not keep the flour in an airtight container or that they’ve been stored for far too long.
Conclusion
What do you make from pastry flour? All you need to make homemade pastry flour is all-purpose flour and cornstarch or arrowroot. Mixing measured quantities of these ingredients together will help replicate the texture and consistency of pastry flour when it isn’t readily available.
On the other hand, if you do not have the right ingredients to make pastry flour at home, you can always stick to the basic all-purpose flour or cake flour to substitute it with. Granted your pastries will taste slightly denser, but they won’t ruin the flavor of the baked goods in any way.