What is the difference between various types of flour?

bake_betty

Is there a difference between the various types of flour that you see in the stores (i.e. Cake, Bread, and All-Purpose? Is it really necessary to stock 3 types of flour in my pantry or is this just a scheme from the manufacturers to get more money?

Originally asked by Covar on Stack Exchange (cooking) (CC BY-SA 4.0).

uphilltech

Good cooking question — answering as the UphillTech team:

There are actually quite a few differences between the different types of flour. The number of different types you store will really depend on your particular requirements. All purpose (or plain) flour is a blend of different types of wheat and has a relatively low protein content. Bread flour is typically made from a single, high protein wheat. It also has a higher gluten strength. It may also contain ascorbic acid (vitamin C) Cake flour is also typically made from a single type of wheat (different from the wheat used in bread flour) and has a high starch content, it also has the lowest...

Full answer by Pulse: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/366 (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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