Features

• Flour is a fine, dense powder that is made from grain. It contains a large concentration of starches, or complex carbohydrates. Flours with a high gluten content sometimes contain leavening agents. This produces a softer, lighter baked item due to air bubbles that are embedded in the flour. Self-rising flour is also available with salt and baking powder already added.
  
  

Production

• Flour is milled by grinding grain between steel wheels or stones. The term "stone ground" is used to describe flour that has been milled by revolving stone wheels. Small appliance mills are also available for producing flour. These mills are typically hand cranked or electric.
  
  

Types

• Maca Flour
  
  There are an enormous number of flours available to consumers. The most commonly used is wheat flour. All-purpose flour is a blend of wheat flour and gluten. It is used for most household baking purposes. Bleached flour, or white flour, has been treated with bleaching agents to whiten it and give it more potential to produce gluten. Bromated flour has had a maturing agent added. Cake flour is more finely milled than other types and has low gluten content. Pastry flour has more gluten than cake flour and is suitable for making pastries. Graham flour is a type of wheat flour in which bran and germ are coarsely ground, while the endosperm is finely ground.
  
  Other types include corn, rye, tapioca, maca, rice, noodle, buckwheat, chestnut, chickpea, bean, potato starch, amaranth, and nut flours. Many of these are specialty flours and cannot always be used in the same way as traditional wheat flour.
  
  

Products

• There are many staple foods made from flour. The most common of these is bread. Other products made using flour include crackers, pasta, cakes and pastries. Wallpaper paste is made using white flour, as is papier-mâché. Cornstarch, a type of flour, is used as the main ingredient in many puddings and deserts; it is also used as a thickening agent in various types of cooking.
  
  

Warning

• Flour dust is flammable when suspended in the air. In medieval times, candles and lamps were forbidden in flour mills to prevent accidents. Fatal explosions have occurred in the past. In 1878, the Washburn "A" Mill in Minneapolis, the largest mill in the United States, was destroyed in a devastating explosion.