Kitchen

[gulf coast girl]

Thanks for your help in the kitchen.

[RedTop]

My preference is all purpose flour, but I do have both on hand at all times.  Most of my favorite recipes are older and were created with all purpose flour.  

[gulf coast girl]

Thanks Red Top. I'm still learning.

[KYToby]

AP -- one can always add salt and baking powder to substitute it for self-rising, but one cannot remove the salt and leavening from self-rising to substitue for AP.

[cookie16]

Not meaning to change original question but what is the difference between bleached flour and unbleached flour?  I think I have only used unbleached.

[gulf coast girl]

The reason I was asking is because I don't do that much baking or cooking for that matter and it seems my baking powder is just being wasted sitting in the cabinet and so it ends up getting thrown away. I'm lucky if we use the can maybe one time, that's a waste to me to even buy it. 

cookie16 I have no idea what the difference is, now that I read that it sort of sounds odd, we're eating bleached food...yuck.

[debic]

I've never even bought self raising flour.  I also keep my baking powder in the fridge.

[Sooner]

Self-rising flour is only used for things that require it to rise--mostly baked goods.  AP can be used for everything but you add leveners to it to make things rise.  So, you could keep ONLY AP for all uses, but not ONLY SR--because is most recipes you couldn't use it because of the levening in it.

Bleached flour is just that--the flour is bleached to make it whiter.  It really doesn't need to be bleached, so I always buy unbleached because it is one less chemical exposure.

Baking powder is cheap so I replace mine every 6 months or so.  I always want to be sure it is fresh.  Flour needs to be fresh too to really taste its best. 

There is a lot of info about different flours--whole wheat, rye, unbleached, cake flour, southern blour for biscuits, etc. on the net.

[peachesncream]

I always have all purpose flour in the house, and sometimes self-rising flour.

It's true that you can create a substitute for self-rising flour by adding baking powder and salt to regular flour. That will work well. 

However, it won't be identical to self-rising flour - because self-rising flour is made from a softer flour with lower protein. That's why it makes superior, tender biscuits, for example.

Self-rising flour also makes baking easier and faster because the leavening and salt are already present.

When I don't have self-rising flour, I make the substitution.  

[Nightowlz]

I always have AP, Bread & Wheat flour in the freezer. Baking soda is cheap so just buy some when you need it. I only buy the aluminum free baking soda like Rumford.