How to Make Bread Flour Substitute at Home

Bread flour is a type of white flour milled from hard red spring wheat grains. At 13 to 16.5 percent protein by weight, bread flour has a higher protein content than any other type of flour. (For comparison, all-purpose flour contains 9 to 13.5 percent protein, pastry flour contains 9 to 11 percent protein, and cake flour has a protein content of just 8 to 9 percent.) Protein content is important when it comes to baking bread, because more protein equals more gluten, and more gluten means more elasticity in the dough and a higher-rising loaves of bread.

If your recipe calls for bread flour but all you have is all-purpose flour, don’t worry. You can substitute all-purpose flour for bread flour one-to-one, though your loaf of yeast bread might have a less chewy texture and likely won’t rise as much as a loaf made with high-gluten flour. Another option is to create your own bread flour substitute by combining all-purpose flour with vital wheat gluten, an isolated form of the flour protein. Measure out a cup of flour, remove one teaspoon of flour, and replace it with a teaspoon of vital wheat gluten.