Spare yourself a trip to the grocery store and learn how to make bread flour at home! Why waste precious space when you can make everything you need from good old-fashioned all-purpose flour?
While I love baking, I have a relatively small kitchen that’s severely lacking in storage space. I have to be very strategic about my purchases.
I go through a ton of all-purpose flour and sugar, so I buy those in 25-pound bulk bags.
Stocking non-essentials like cake, bread, and self-rising flour just aren’t practical for me, as much as I wish I had more storage space.
The good news is that you can create all of these ingredients from good old-fashioned all-purpose flour!
For today’s post, let’s take a closer look at bread (high protein) flour. If you’re a regular around here, you may have noticed that many of my bread recipes use all-purpose flour.
Have you figured out why yet?
What is bread flour?
Bread flour is a high protein flour (12-14%) that’s often used in yeast bread.
The extra protein produces more gluten, which often means a chewier bread and a better rise. Gluten gives bread dough its elasticity and stretch, trapping air bubbles.
Keep in mind that if a recipe calls for high protein flour, you can often still substitute all-purpose flour and get perfectly fine results.
Can I Use All-Purpose Flour Instead of Bread Flour?
You can absolutely use all-purpose flour instead of bread flour in recipes.
You can follow the tutorial below to create a bread flour substitute, or you can simply use all-purpose flour in its place.
Bread flour is going to give you the best results, but I promise you’ll still get tasty bread with all-purpose flour.
How to make bread flour substitute
Skip to the end of the post for a condensed printable version.
Bread flour ingredients: Vital wheat gluten, also known as wheat gluten or wheat gluten flour, is a finely milled powder that can be purchased in the baking aisle at grocery stores and online.
You can add it to all-purpose flour to increase the protein content, essentially creating homemade bread flour.
Unfortunately, there’s no general consensus within the baking community about how much vital wheat gluten to add to all-purpose flour to convert recipes.
I’ve seen everything from 1 teaspoon per cup to 1-3 tablespoons “per recipe.”
Technically, this is a trial and error process, but I’ve found that 1-1/2 teaspoons per cup will get the job done.
- Measure out 1 cup all-purpose flour (4 1/2 ounces or 129 grams).
- Remove 1 1/2 teaspoons (1/8 ounce or 4 grams).
- Add 1 1/2 teaspoons of vital wheat gluten (1/8 ounce or 5 grams).
- Whisk or sift to combine.
1 cup all-purpose flour – 1 1/2 teaspoons all-purpose flour + 1 1/2 teaspoons vital wheat gluten = 1 cup bread flour substitute
Try using my flour substitute in these Perfect Chewy Pretzel Buns!
How to Store Flour
Take your newly purchased bag of flour and place it in a large, sealable plastic bag, or (even better) a large snap-top plastic container.
You want your flour storage solution to be as airtight as possible, because the less moisture and air allowed in, the slower the oxidation process will be.
Additionally, storing flour in an airtight container helps keep it from absorbing any flavors or odors.
More Tutorials
If you enjoyed this post, you may also enjoy my tutorials on how to make cake flour and how to make self-rising flour! I also have a tutorial on how to measure flour. King Arthur Flour also has this handy ingredient weight chart which is incredibly useful for baking with various flours!
Homemade Bread Flour
Ingredients
- 1 cup all-purpose flour (4 1/2 ounces or 129 grams)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vital wheat gluten (1/8 ounce or 4 grams)
Instructions
- Measure out the all-purpose flour into a medium bowl.
- Subtract 1 1/2 teaspoons flour and replace with 1 1/2 teaspoons vital wheat gluten (1/8 ounce or 5 grams).
- Whisk or sift to combine.
Please read my full post for additional recipe notes, tips, and serving suggestions!
Nutrition
Recipe Troubleshooting
For immediate help troubleshooting a recipe, please email me using the form on my contact page. I’ll try to respond to urgent questions as quickly as possible! For all general questions, please leave a comment here :)
Can I add whole wheat flour instead of gluten? How much should I add? In India we make whole wheat flour at home ,so it is very easy to get wheat flour.kindly give me in metric measures.
Hi, you won’t get bread flour if you use whole wheat flour. That will just make all-purpose flour with some whole wheat mixed in.
Oh my God thank you!!! Glad i didnt do that because i can’t get wheat gluten here
You can order it online at amazon.com and Walmart.com
Bread machine calls for bread flour. I used reg and it didn’t raise. Yeast was good. Do I need bread flour for machine?
Sounds like a recipe issue. Bread should still rise with all-purpose.
Hello Jenn. Looking at your recipe how to make bread flour, your measurements say to use 1 cup of flour and then in brackets you have 41/2 ounces. Dont u mean 8 ounces. So is it suppose to be 1/2 cup of flour for 4 ounces or 1 cup of flour for 8 ounces. I was going to make this but then I realized something is wrong with your measurements. Lol.
Nothing is wrong with my measurements; you’re confusing ounces with fluid ounces. Does 1 cup of feathers = 8 ounces? 8 ounces is a cup of water. :)
Thanks for this! I find it easier to work with weight – here’s a formula for calculating how much you need:
x=AP flour
y=Gluten
z=Total weight (g) bread flour desired
y=z*120/125
x=z-y
Example:
Recipe calls for 500g bread flour.
y=500*120/125=480g AP flour
x=500-480=20g Gluten
This sounds like algebra to me. not everybody is a mathematician. Where do you get 120/125 from and what does it even mean?
Where did you get your linen towels? :)
It’s been years so I’m not totally sure, but there’s a good chance they came from Fog Linen. That’s where I’ve purchased a lot of my napkins.
Thank you, I appreciate it! And, oh yeah, your bread flour formula worked wonderfully for me. ;) Happy holidays.
I so appreciate the recipe! I just wanted to share because I have recently found a way to do this that’s a little easier than measuring a cup flour, subtracting flour, then adding gluten…
it would be add 1 1/2 teaspoons vital gluten to the bottom of one measuring cup, then fill the rest up with AP flour.
same with making Buttermilk, you add a Tbsp of lemon juice or vinegar to 1 cup then fill the rest with milk
Bread flours are so pricey, thankful I came across your recipe to make bread flour, because I do have a pack of vital gluten which I can use to make this. Thank you.
Thank you so much. This has helped me a whole lot. I was using APF to make and somehow I wasn’t achieving the right results. I was about to give up but then I Googled and voila your article not only explained the difference but I’m now aware how to change from APF to bread flour. Thanks again.