FAQ #3: Flours

[rhiannon_666]

With users from 148 different countries, it stands to reason that a lot gets lost in translation, even amongst English speakers. For a number of years now, the mod team has rejected posts asking questions such as, "What is self-raising flour?" and answered them ourselves. It's something that appears constantly in the queue (twice already this week

Comments

[mercy_rain]

OK, but what's cornflour? Is this the same as corn starch?

[rhiannon_666]

Yep, same as corn starch, but not corn meal. I nearly included a section for it, but left it out because it doesn't form the basis of the most common dry flour mixes. There's a lot that isn't here.

[lizziebuffy2008]

You might want to put corn starch in parentheses after corn flour, because I don't think most people (at least in the southern US) would know that is what you mean.

[doubletake]

Especially with the advent of gluten-free baking, where there is now in fact, "corn flour" which is NOT "corn starch"--just really finely ground corn meal. Eep!

[rhiannon_666]

Good idea. Will edit it in as soon as I can access a PC.