Please log in with your username or email to continue. By using our site, you agree to our cookie policy. How is where trusted bread without wheat flour and expert knowledge come together.

This article was co-authored by Bill Holdenstern. Bill Holdenstern is a Baker and the Co-Owner of East Bay Pie Co. With over 10 years of experience in the food industry, he specializes in making pot pies filled with flavors from around the world. Bill trained with chefs in multiple restaurants and studied business at Bunker Hill Community College. This article has been viewed 132,530 times. To the inexperienced baker, “bread flour” and “all-purpose flour” may at first seem to be the same thing. In fact, bread flour is a special type of flour made from hard, high-protein wheat.

This gives it a high gluten content and a “stronger,” denser feel once it’s baked. While bread flour isn’t common in all kitchens, it’s easy to make substitutes from the flour you do have lying around. Buy or order vital wheat gluten. For this recipe, you’ll need only two ingredients: all-purpose flour and vital wheat gluten. All-purpose flour can be purchased at nearly any grocery store.

However, you may need to make a trip to a health food store or a baking supply store to find vital wheat gluten. Alternatively, if you can stand to wait, vital wheat gluten is easily available for order online. You won’t need more than a few teaspoons of vital wheat gluten for most bread recipes. Measure out the all-purpose flour for your recipe. Look at the recipe to see how much bread flour is required.

Measure out this much all-purpose flour instead. Pour this flour into a mixing bowl separate from the other ingredients. Add one teaspoon vital wheat gluten per cup of flour. This converts all-purpose flour to a form that can be used just like bread flour.

Add a small amount of whole wheat flour. This step isn’t essential, but a little wheat flour works well as a binding agent and gives the bread a subtle “nutty” flavor. 2 teaspoon per cup of all-purpose flour so as not to affect the total volume of your dry ingredients. Sift the ingredients above together in the bowl. Once they are well incorporated, you will be left with a substance you can use in place of bread flour. The gluten in the new flour substitute will give the final product a denser, “stronger” bread than you would have otherwise. Don’t be alarmed if your bread turns out with a slightly different texture than it had before.

Measure out wholewheat flour for your recipe. The basic process for converting wholewheat flour to bread flour is basically the same as above. However, a few qualities of wholewheat flour make some minor differences necessary. To start, add the wheat flour to a mixing bowl. Again, this is a one-to-one substitution for the bread flour in your recipe. Add two teaspoons of vital wheat gluten per cup flour.

Wholewheat flour contains a substance called bran which weakens the effects of gluten. This means that it’s necessary to add more gluten artificially than you would with all-purpose flour. This scales proportionally in the same way as in the section above. For instance, if you have three cups of wholewheat flour, you would add six teaspoons of vital wheat gluten.

Sift the ingredients together in the mixing bowl. When they are well combined, the substance you have in the bowl will substitute well for bread flour. However, for the best possible results, a few more precautions are necessary. Add extra water to the wet ingredients. The bran and protein content of wholewheat flour tend to make it slightly more absorbent than normal flour.