Baking in the UK: Flour

Daunting.

Daunting, daunting, daunting.

Daunting when you're standing in the baking aisle at Asda with a shrieking kid and a half-empty cart. Daunting when you realize British recipes are in grams and you brought all your measuring cups and spoons. Daunting when you're so happy you actually brought that cookbook from home, only you forgot the measuring cups and realize they are hard to find in the UK.

Obviously, the internet is your friend in that you can order just about any tools you need—once you actually have an internet connection. Chances are though, you likely won't be baking until you feel comfortable in your new habitat. At least, that's how it is for me: I can't bake, I can't sing, and I can't drink wine until I am feeling mostly like my normal self.

This said, let me give you a bit of a run-down if you're ready to bake in the UK, or if you've not moved yet and are reading this from Canada in the hopes of packing the right stuff.

A few words about flour. In England, I have found more flour than I ever thought existed. Plain flour and self-raising flour are the two most commonly used here. But you can also find wholemeal flour, bread flour, seed and grain flour, coconut flour, sponge flour, pasta flour, cake flour, and any variety of these types of flour—such as very strong white bread flour, brown bread flour, organic wholemeal flour, extra fine white flour, etc. You will also find cornflour, which actually isn't flour flour, and should not be confused with what we Canadians call cornmeal (or polenta flour). All these types of flour also often come in so many different sizes, it can be quite a challenge to leave with exactly what you needed.

Can you see why I said it was daunting? You want to make banana bread because you've got two or three overly ripe bananas—because food seems to spoil faster here—sitting on your mini counter in your new flat (read: taking up space you can't afford to give to said bananas) and you're faced with five shelves filled with bags of flour in a variety of types, sizes, brands, and prices.

So. Plain flour is what we call all-purpose flour.

Self-raising flour is generally a low-protein, low-gluten flour that has a raising agent (i.e. baking powder, baking soda, etc.) already mixed in. Due to its low-protein content, this would be the best choice to make cake or something that needs to be light and airy.

Note: Self-raising flour loses its "raising power" if it's kept too long. It has been suggested that, for people who don't eat eggs, the use of this type of flour does the eggs' work. (If you're back in Canada and trying to make your own self-raising flour, ask Nigella!)

Wholemeal flour is what we call whole wheat or wholegrain flour. It is a less-refined flour, made with the entire wheat "berry", including bran and germ, making it more nutritious and higher in fibre than other flours. It is also coarser in texture and has a shorter shelf life. (Seed and grain flour is typically a wholemeal flour with the addition of seeds and rye.)

Bread flour has a higher protein count than plain/all-purpose, which helps with gluten development and gives more elasticity and density to breads and other types of dough (think pizza!). Generally speaking, you can probably substitute bread flour and plain/all-purpose flour but the texture may be different.

Cake flour is flour that is ground finer than all-purpose flower and is likely the lowest protein flour available, perfect for baking things that need to be light and fluffy. Sponge flour is cake flour that may be ground even finer and may possibly have an even lower protein count, suggesting it will make the cake even lighter/fluffier.

Note: If you are trying to replicate cake flour for whatever reason, here's an easy recipe.

Incidentally, if you want to make polenta, corn flour is called polenta here.

Part of the shelves dedicated to flour at the local Asda.

Part of the shelves dedicated to flour at the local Asda.

A word on other baking ingredients. If you're looking for baking soda, they call it bicarbonate of soda. And cornflour here is actually what we call corn starch, what you would use to thicken gravy.

Once I'd finally started feeling like my normal self again, and gotten a hold on the baking goods situation, I researched conversions for various measurements (from mass to cups) and found many excellent resources. Because you can't expect 100g of butter to equal the same amount of cups as 100g of flour, right? So I made a series of printer-friendly PDFs to help you out in the kitchen. Go ahead and take a look!

Happy baking!