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 :)
John McBride says
I love to bake and have always found it a real pain to keep cake flour on hand….thank you thank you! great article really valuable information. My 11 year old grand daughter who is my baking partner is going to love this.
Lev Lvovsky says
So much easier with weights. For every 125g of AP add 5g of gluten. So for a recipe calling for 1000g of flour, you’ll add an additional 40g gluten. Work hydration from there…
lex says
do you replace the forty grams? ie does the total weight end up being 1000g still or does it turn into 1040g?
Lev Lvovsky says
So the initial recipe asked for 129 grams of flour, remove 4, and then add 5 of the wheat gluten. So ignoring the wheat gluten for a moment, 129 – 4 = 125. 125g to 5g is the ratio that we’ll be working with from here on out. Thankfully for us, the round number 1000 (which in my case translates to two large boules), divides evenly by 125, and gets us 8.
This means that for every 1000 grams of flour, we’re adding 8 times the wheat gluten, which gets us 40g.
Long story short, to answer your question, it’s 1000g of flour + 40g of gluten.
To make it even simpler, 100g flour + 4g gluten. Multiply for your quantities from there.
Hope this helps, and doesn’t make it even more complicated!
Eleanor Meyer says
Brilliant Lev, thank you You must be a mathematician! as a Chef I work with says – “Chefs work with numbers all the time – but simple numbers!” The bread shop where I buy ingredients says always weigh all ingredients even wet ones as its way more accurate
Suzanne Conti Becknell says
These crazy times make it hard to find any flour on the shelves, let alone bread flour! I’m an artisan baker and need bread flour to make my business work. I am looking forward to trying this with AP flour. Able to order Vital Gluten Protein online and going to work my magic. THANK YOU!
Leslee says
Thanks for the tip! Making sourdough bread again now that breads so dang scarce!
Sally standing says
Iv started baking bread again and using 500 grams plain flour as I can’t get hold of strong bread flour at the moment. I added 2 table spoons vital wheat gluten.
It wasn’t as light as I’d like it. Definitely more dense. Would you be able to give me any tips on how I can improve this.
Many thanks
Emily says
Thank you for the bread flour conversion! I made bread for the first time yesterday this way, and it came out great!
Andrea says
Can I make this flour ahead of time and store it in the freezer?
Jennifer Farley says
Sure!
Leo says
Thank you so much for this idea. Bread flour is out of stock everywhere due to the COVID-19 scare. The only thing I could find is AP flour. I was wondering what to do when I came across your article. You are a God Sent!
Lisa says
Hello. Thank you for this information. I happen to have a large amount of white pastry flour and I found vital wheat gluten on line. How much wheat gluten should I add to the pastry flour to make bread flour?
Angie says
Thanks, I had already researched on line for what to use to make bread flour, . I bought my bag of vital wheat gluten, the only bag left that I could find, and thought what now!!! Well I don’t have to worry now with you conversion chart I am all set to go. Than just, I now have a supplier and a chart to get me going, could be happier!!!
Teresa Jimenez says
How does 1 cup equal 4.5 ounces?
Jennifer Farley says
Are you confusing dry ounces with fluid ounces? One cup of water equals 8 fluid ounces, but one cup can weigh different amounts depending on the item. A cup of rocks weighs more than a cup of feathers. A cup of flour will vary in weight depending on how it’s measured, but it tends to average 4.5 ounces :)
Teresa Jimenez says
Thanks, yes I was confusing it.
Carol says
My math is terrible so I’m trying to figure out how to turn 5 3/4 cups AP flour into Bread Flour. So how much do I remove and replace with vital wheat gluten.
Any help would be appreciated.
Mary says
Where do I find vital wheat gluten? Do they sell it in the grocery stores or do I have to order It on line?
Jennifer Farley says
I usually buy it from Amazon, but I’ve also seen it at some grocery stores in the baking section! I know my Whole Foods carries it.
Donna says
Kroger’s in my area of Ohio always carries it!
Simon Devonport says
Would this work with wholemeal flour?
Afra Glancy says
can you help me i have flour that is 8grms of protein and i need it to be 12.5gms so i can make bread i have purchased VWG flour to add can you tell me how much i need to add I use 520gms of flour per loaf of bread
many thanks
Afra Glancy
Candi says
Hello. So I tried this with a recipe I am using and unfortunately my dough is runny (16 hours later – needed to sit 12-18 hours). The recipe calls for 5 cups of bread flour so I took the 5 cups of AP flour, removed the 7.5 TSPS (converted to 2.5 TBS for simplicity) of flour and then added 2.5 TBS of vital wheat gluten back into the AP flour. Please help. What am missing or doing wrong? Thank you!!!
Jennifer Farley says
That sounds like it’s most likely an issue with the recipe, not the bread flour conversion :(
Candi says
:-( is right
Thank you