Flours & Ingredients

Good flour is the foundation of every loaf, whether it is a Sunday Zopf, a Swiss dark loaf or a pretzel. You will find the ingredients for bread baking neatly sorted into these sections: Flours from white flour to coarse rye meal, Baking malt & baking aids such as malt extract and baker's starch, Bake-stable chocolate for chocolate rolls and cookies, and Spices & flavour powders for bread, gingerbread and coloured doughs. Sourdough starter, Lievito Madre and yeast are under Sourdough & yeast.

Which flour for which bread?

Our bread flours come in 1 kg packs. The three Swiss classics differ in how much of the outer grain is milled into the flour:

• White flour is fine, light and very stretchy. It is the flour for Zopf, soft rolls, croissants, sandwich bread and baguettes.
• Half-white flour contains a little more of the outer layers and has a slightly stronger wheat flavour. It makes the typical Swiss everyday loaf, as well as ciabatta and mixed-grain bread.
• Ruchmehl (Swiss dark wheat flour) is the darkest of the three and has the most robust flavour. It is the basis of Ruchbrot and farmhouse bread and works well blended with other flours.

There is also fine wholemeal wheat flour and wholemeal spelt flour, for which the whole grain is milled. Wholemeal flour absorbs more water, so give your dough a little more liquid and time to soak. Use light spelt flour much like wheat flour, but handle the dough more gently: knead it for a shorter time and less vigorously.

Dark rye flour and coarse rye meal give a dense, moist and flavourful loaf. Rye dough does not build a stretchy gluten network like wheat, so it has to be acidified, traditionally with sourdough. To see how a sourdough loaf comes together, try our recipe for country bread with a wheat-ear pattern. Good to know: flour is the finest grind, semolina a little coarser and meal coarse. Our pasta flour is in fact durum wheat semolina, which gives fresh pasta its bite.

Using baking malt, sourdough and yeast

Baking malt comes in two kinds, and the difference matters. Malt without the word "active", that is the 500 g baking malt and the 4 kg inactive baking malt, gives the crust a lovely colour and a malty flavour. Active baking malt, on the other hand, contains working enzymes that break down part of the starch in the dough. This changes the rise and the crumb, so use it sparingly and follow the instructions on the pack. Morga malt extract also adds a malty flavour. Find out more in our article Baking malt: effect, dosage and alternatives.

Sourdough brings acidity and flavour to bread. Wheat and rye sourdough powder, organic rye sourdough extract and liquid rye sourdough are not raising agents in their own right, though: they add flavour, but the dough also needs yeast to rise. A live sourdough made with the sourdough starter, or Lievito Madre, raises the dough by itself, given a little patience.

Bake-stable chocolate, spices and pretzels

Bake-stable chocolate keeps its shape in the oven. For pain au chocolat and chocolate croissants there are dark and milk chocolate batons, including Callebaut chocolate sticks in a pack of 300. Drops, chips and chunks, also from FunCakes in dark, milk and white, can be mixed into cookies, muffins or sweet rolls.

Among the spices you will find bread spice, green aniseed, Ceylon cinnamon and gingerbread and speculoos spice for Christmas baking. With wild garlic, spinach, tomato, beetroot or porcini powder you can flavour and colour bread and pasta doughs, while squid ink turns them black. For the mottled crust of tiger bread there is tiger paste in two varieties.

For pretzels and lye rolls you need lye pearls or the ready-to-use lye solution (1 litre) and coarse pretzel salt. Lye is corrosive, so always wear gloves. Suitable gloves and everything else are in Pretzels & lye bread.

Frequently asked questions

Which flour should I use for Zopf?

White flour. It is fine and very stretchy, so the dough plaits neatly. You can also practise plaiting with a professional in our bread courses in Adliswil.

Do I need sourdough for rye bread?

Yes, rye dough has to be acidified. The easiest way is with your own sourdough. If you use sourdough powder or extract, add yeast as well.

How should I store flour?

Somewhere cool, dry and dark, in a well-sealed container. Take it out in good time so that it is at room temperature when you make the dough and the dough does not end up too cold.