What is the difference between “whole wheat pastry flour” and “all-purpose flour”?
The difference between whole wheat pastry flour and all-purpose flour is the type of wheat and the parts of the wheat berry used. In whole wheat pastry flour, the entire wheat berry is used in the milling process, and the type of wheat is a soft wheat, which has less gluten-forming proteins. This type of flour is used for pies, muffins, cookies, cakes – any pastry that you want to be tender. All-purpose flour is only the center part of the wheat berry, called the endosperm, which is why it is whiter in color and smoother in texture than whole wheat flour. Usually, all-purpose flour is milled from hard wheat, which has a lot of gluten-forming proteins; in the south, however, all-purpose flour can be milled from soft wheat (White Lily is one of these). Since the gluten-forming proteins in these two types of flour are so different, they really shouldn’t be interchanged – if you use all-purpose flour for the pastry flour, your pastry will probably be a little tougher and drier. For pies or
