hello, can someone explain the difference between type 500/ 550 and other flours? Sure they have a picture of a babcia with bundt cake in her hands.... but does it mean it's specifically for baking??
I can't get an answer from any of my female friends. (bad sign)
Flour type, according to Polish food regulations, means the content of ashes in it (i.e. the remains after complete burning of the organic ingredients in a sample of the product at a determined temperature). Ii is expressed in gramms/100 kg of flour. For example: type 500 means that in every 100 kg of flour there's around 500 g of ashes, and type 850 means that in every 100 kg the content of ashes is around 850 g.
Main types of wheat flours:
- mąka poznańska, typ 500 - recommended for dough for noodles, pierogi, pizza, for sauces (as densifier); - mąka luksusowa, typ 550 - recommended for dough for yeast cakes and fried cakes; - mąka tortowa, typ 450 - recommended for dough for sponge cake or sponge cake with fat; - mąka krupczatka, typ 500 - recommended for shortcrust pastry and "półkruche" (shortcrust pastry with cream, egg whites and baking soda), "ciasto parzone" (steamed dough/pastry???) and maccaroni
- mąka wrocławska, typ 500 - recommended for dough for yeast cakes, puff pastry (ciasto francuskie) and rough-puff pastry (ciasto półfrancuskie), pancakes, soups and sauces
As far as I know we can not call it as "whole grain flour". It's a kind of flour that contains %1.7 ash in its complex. It's colour is more brown according to the other types of flour that have less ash content. I mean ash content and colour have direct proportion between: That means when the ash content rises, the colour of the flour gets more brown.
If you don't want to consume white flour, you can use thşs type of flour or it's better you use the other types that have more ash contents, just as mąka graham (typ 1850-%1.85 ash content) mąka razowa (typ 2000-%2 ash content) and mąka pełnego przemiału (typ 3000-%3 ash content). These are the maximum ash content values for each.
