Pastry Flour
A low-protein wheat flour (8-9%) designed to create tender pie crusts, biscuits, and puff pastry.
1 Cup Pastry Flour = 114g (4.0 oz) • 1 Cup Sifted = 102g
Pastry flour is milled from soft red winter wheat, featuring a protein content that ranges between 8% and 9%. This places it exactly between cake flour (6-8%) and all-purpose flour (10-12%). It is designed for baked goods that require a delicate balance of tenderness and structural integrity. The low protein level minimizes gluten development, ensuring that doughs remain soft and flakiness is maximized, while still providing enough gluten structure to hold fats and laminated layers together. This makes it the premier choice for professional pastry chefs crafting pie crusts, biscuits, tarts, puff pastry, and scones.
Unlike cake flour, pastry flour is typically unbleached, retaining a natural creamy color and a slightly more robust wheat flavor. When pastry flour is unavailable, home cooks can easily create an equivalent substitute by blending all-purpose flour with cake flour, which lowers the protein percentage to the desired 8-9% range. It should be avoided in yeast breads, where strong gluten networks are necessary to trap carbon dioxide.
Using pastry flour to bake artisan sourdough or sandwich breads. The low protein content cannot support a tall, structural rise, resulting in a flat, dense, and gummy loaf.
In the UK, pastry flour is equivalent to soft plain flour. In France, Type 45 (T45) flour behaves very similarly in pastry doughs.
Use for pie doughs, tart shells, biscuits, scones, croissants, and shortbread cookies where tenderness and flakiness are paramount.
1 cup pastry flour = 2/3 cup all-purpose flour + 1/3 cup cake flour (whisked together).
Store in an airtight container in a cool, dry pantry for up to 6 months.