January 30, 2018 - 5:55am
Restaurant Depot AP flour
I've been buying King Arthur special patent flour from Restaurant Depot in 50 lb bags and making our day-to-day bread with that. Recently, my wife complained that she felt the bread was a little tough on the jaw muscles. I tried switching to King Arthur AP flour (purchased at a local supermarket), and she thought it was better. I'm not spending $4.50 for five pound bags and I'd like to pick up a 50 pounder from Restaurant Depot. Unfortunately, they don't sell King Arthur AP flour. They have several other options. They have General Mills, Gold Medal and Ceresota (that I've never heard of). Which of these might be closest to the KA that we're used to?
Share
IMHO, they're all good as long as they're unbleached and have no additives. I check the packaging labels before I buy flour. I don't use yeast; my bread is made with my 11-year old sourdough starter. I've used King Arthur, Trader Joe, Gold Medal, Heckers, et.al. and find no discernible difference among them in the final outcome of either my bread or starter. KA is $5 for five pounds here. Trader Joe is $3. Depending on the time of the year Gold Medal was recently $2 for five pounds.
That's good to know. To be honest, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to tell the difference. RD sells 50lb bags of Gold medal for $16.50, and even sell 25lb bags. Eight 5 lb bags of General Mills is under $13.
Maybe there will be a sale in February that will decide it for me. :D
since all APs aren't exactly the same in this regard.
Red Hard winter and white hard spring have the same protein but hard winter red is used for AP and some parts of Bread flour and White Hard Spring has much higher gluten proteins and is used for bread and High gluten flour.
and not gotten the gluten %, or are you only referring to what's printed on the packaging? The one manufacturer I've asked provided the info.
this brand has been around for years—my grandmother baked with it—and it is never bleached or bromated. I’d say it’s on a par with KAF, it’s just harder to find around these parts. I steer clear from GM and ADM products because of the bleaching, bromating, and additives...plus I’m not a fan of agribusiness.
both make unbleached bread flours, all-purpose and other specialty flours--all the major milling companies do. ConAgra, Horizon Milling, Cargill, and CHS are all involved in a milling joint venture called Ardent.
King Arthur (KAF) has no mills and contracts with the large companies for its flours. As recently as 2019, it was buying wheat flour from ADM, and probably buys from the other companies depending on the product and the proximity of their mills to a particular market. ADM, Ardent, and General Mills unbleached wheat flours have the same ingredients as King Arthur.