Is expensive flour really better than cheap flour?

"You know, you can always just use the cheaper flour. It works great and in the end it's the same everywhere anyway, just packaged differently." If this truism echoes through your head as you're standing in front of the flour shelf in the supermarket and you're not sure whether the extra two francs for the better-looking flour is actually worth it: You're not alone in this.

We wanted to find out for sure and compared a cheap flour from a discounter with the slightly more expensive flour from a miller. With a surprising result! If you also want to know what the result was, just watch the video. And if you want to find out more, read on here.

White flour, smoked flour, wholemeal flour - what's in it?

Depending on the type of flour, a larger or smaller proportion of the grain is processed. In white flour, for example, it is only the endosperm, i.e. the innermost part of the grain. Wholemeal flour contains the whole grain.

As most of the nutrients are found in the outer layers of the grain, bread made from wholemeal flour is considered healthier. Due to the higher fibre content, it also keeps you feeling fuller for longer. The outer layers also have a higher water-binding capacity than the centre of the grain. This is why a bread dough made from wholemeal flour can absorb more liquid than a bread dough made from white flour.

Flour

Altbachmühle White flour

1000 g

5

Flour

Altbachmühle White flour

1000 g

5

The flour type

You've probably already come across it, the flour type: In many good recipes, the Swiss flour type (e.g. white flour type 400) is added to the Swiss flour type designation "white flour", "ruchmehl" and so on. The flour type is a flour categorisation based on the mineral content of the flour. As most minerals are contained in the outer layers of the grain kernel, the flour contains more minerals if it contains more of these outer layers. And the more minerals the flour contains, the higher the flour type.

Unfortunately, the types of flour are not standardised across countries, which always causes confusion. That's why you can find a brief overview here of which Swiss flour type corresponds to which flour designation in our neighbouring countries.

Expensive vs cheap flour: my conclusion

The cheapest flour on the supermarket shelf will not deliver the same results when baking bread as flour from a good flour mill. Of course, a good recipe and the correct execution of all work steps are just as important. But not only. Cheap flour is not bad per se. You can use it for cakes or biscuits, it works really well. But the extra two francs are worth it for bread, puff pastry or Danish pastries. 100 per cent.

What's more, if I take the time to bake myself, then I also enjoy the fact that I can determine the quality of the ingredients myself. No matter what the truism says.