Pass the flour through a sieve
If you are convinced to find in this article the plot of a detective story where the captain talking to his staff says: I want you to sift the area thoroughly until they find the culprits ... .well, you're in the wrong post. Here we talk about simple flour, be it common wheat or durum wheat, and we will see why it is always advisable to go to the flour sieve.
Pass the flour through a sieve
Almost all the recipes we find the words: Pass the flour through a sieve. The sieve is an ancient instrument, made of wood with a very dense mesh through which you drop the flour until it becomes a fine powder and almost impalpable to the touch. There hung the old wooden sieve all over the walls of local rustic, pizzerias, and old photos of family memories.
Today, modern version of the sieve is made of plastic or steel.
Why should I upgrade to the flour sieve before use?
Sifting the flour, you start an important chemical process, called oxidation. The operation to divide the flour into small grains allows oxygen to penetrate easily between the particles, the presence of a larger amount of oxygen trapped in the flour, allow greater absorption of water, forming a better gluten network, the leavening process it will benefit and you will notice that the final product will be more but tall and perfectly honeycombed.
This process is very important in the preparation of sweets, come the sponge,plum cake and many others. Indeed in recipes for sweets is always recommended sift together the flour and baking powder. The thing to do is to put on our sieve the amount of flour application together with a packet of baking powder for cakes and pass through a sieve to get the product ventilated.
The operation to sift flour, turns out to be less when used for kneading using an electric mixer, where the action of the blades already in itself carries out the operation to aerate the mixture, but ... if you have ventilated(sifted) the flour previously, you can only improve the yield.
When all of us consume the bread at the table, we feel very pleased to find a light and airy crumb, so ... .prendete the habit of passing the flour through a sieve.
If you want to know more on the sieve click here