Bread Flour vs All-Purpose Flour

So the unthinkable happened last night, I ran out of bread four. Normally I keep a fairly good supply on-hand but for some reason I forgot to buy more the last time I was at the grocery store.

This left me with a decision - should I:
a) Run out to the store (it was late at night so this wasn't a great option)
b) Use All-Purpose (AP) flour

Protein
5-8%	cake flour
8-10%	pastry flour
10-11.5%	all-purpose flour
11-13%	bread flour
14% and up	high-gluten flour

I chose option B because not making bread would be even worse than going grocery shopping late at night.

So what is the difference between the two most common types of flour? It's different gluten/protein concentrations. AP is in the 10% range and Bread is in the 12% range, why do you want to have more gluten/protein? Crumb structure. The more gluten you have the longer the gluten bonds you can sustain.

Think about the difference between cake (5%) and a nice french bread (12%) and that's a good way to remember why bread bakers want higher percentages.

A great wiki reference on Flour: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flour

If you want to get started with bread baking and all you have is AP flour, give this recipe a try:

• 15g Salt
• 350g Flour (any type)
  
• 350g Water
• 10g Yeast

It's easier than you think! (trust me)

-Matt the Weekend Baker