Baking can bloom with designer ingredients, including flour

All-purpose is passé. More East Valley residents are mixing pizzazz into their breads, cakes and pastas by using alternative types of flour.

And the benefits go beyond nutrition.

“Flour changes the flavor of a recipe,” says Michael Gesik, pastry chef instructor at the Scottsdale Culinary Institute. “You can get a lot of different types of breads, using the same recipe and tweaking the flour just a bit.”

In the past few years more choices have become available as shelves at even mainstream grocery stores have become stocked with whole-wheat, potato, soy, spelt and other flours, says Gesik.

But all flour is not all-purpose. Each one is suited for specific recipes.

One thing to look for when choosing a flour is gluten, a protein that forms the structure of bread dough.

Gluten produces stronger, chewier products and is best suited for breads and other yeast products that need to rise.

Less gluten is best in pie crusts, cakes, cookies and biscuits.

“Gluten is very critical for baking, especially if baking bread,” Gesik says. “If you do not have sufficient gluten in your product, your dough won’t rise like it should. It will bake flat and dense.”

To get the flavor of a specific type of flour without sacrificing the texture, mix a nongluten flour with wheat flour, which has a high gluten content.

Not only will different flours enhance the taste, some are more nutritious than

others.

Bleached white flour is considered a nutritionally empty food, says Dee Mc-Caffrey, diet counselor and organic chemist for the Center for Processed-Free Living in Tempe.

“In the process of turning whole-wheat kernels into white flour, all of the fiber, vitamins and minerals are removed,” McCaffrey says. “So once it ends up becoming the white flour, it doesn’t have any nutrients left in it.”

In fact, it’s so nutritionally void the government requires manufacturers of white flour to add synthetic vitamins.

“The reason why this is so harmful is because in the original wheat kernel, there’s about 100 different vitamins and minerals,” she says. “When you take all those out and then just add back in tiny amounts of isolated vitamins, it doesn’t provide everything your body needs to properly digest the wheat.”

Because the body can’t properly balance all the vitamins and minerals, it can upset the digestive system and cause internal inflammation.

Overexposure to bleached white flour can cause some people to become allergic or intolerant to it, which means they can’t digest it.

“Obviously a 100 percent whole-wheat product like a bread or a pasta would be much better for you than a white-flour product,” Mc-Caffrey says. “But there are other grains that are actually quite tasty and would probably provide more variety to people’s diets so there isn’t such an overexposure to just wheat.”

SEMOLINA FLOUR: Semolina is yellow granular flour made from coarsely ground durum wheat. Because it contains a high level of gluten, semolina flour produces strong, sticky dough. It is used almost exclusively for making pasta.

WHOLE-WHEAT FLOUR: Ground from the whole grain, this flour is denser and coarser than traditional all-purpose flour. Because it is less refined, it is also more nutritious. Generally, you can replace white flour with whole-wheat flour in any recipe, substituting one for one. For bread, a mixture of wholewheat and white can be used to make a lighter loaf.

AMARANTH FLOUR: Made from amaranth grain, this flour has a sweet taste. It is gluten-free and can be used in pastas and baked goods. For flatbreads, pancakes and pastas, 100 percent amaranth flour can be used. For yeast breads, substitute one-quarter of the recipe’s conventional flour with amaranth flour.

SOY FLOUR: Soy flour is made from roasted soybeans ground into a fine powder. Rich in protein and other nutrients, soy flour can be used in a variety of foods including fudge, pies, cakes, rolls, pasta and pancakes.

SPELT FLOUR: Spelt is a grain similar to wheat but is higher in protein and lower in gluten. Spelt flour has a mild nutty flavor and can be substituted for wheat flour in products including breads, pastas, cookies, crackers, cakes, muffins, pancakes and waffles.

POTATO FLOUR: Ground from dehydrated whole potatoes, this flour is often used to thicken soups, sauces and gravies. It is also mixed with other types of flour for baking breads and rolls. In breads, substitute a ratio of 15 percent potato and 85 percent wheat flour.