Okay, so, I’ve been messing around with different flours lately, and let me tell you, the rabbit hole goes deep! Today, I wanna talk about this one flour I’ve been experimenting with: Sir Lancelot flour from King Arthur. Yeah, it’s got a fancy name, and honestly, it kinda lives up to it.
First off, I got my hands on this stuff because I was on a mission to make the chewiest bagels ever. I’d been using regular all-purpose flour, and my bagels were coming out okay, but not with that real, satisfying chew, you know? So, I did some digging and found out about high-gluten flours, these are the good ones used for bread. Sir Lancelot kept popping up as the top dog, with a protein content of around 14%.
My First Try
- Mixing: I whipped up a basic bagel dough, just swapped out the regular flour for Sir Lancelot. Right away, I noticed the dough felt different. It was tougher, more elastic. I kneaded it for a good while, and it took some real elbow grease, let me tell you!
- Rising: The dough rose like a champ. It was noticeably more robust than what I was used to. I shaped the bagels, and they held their shape beautifully.
- Boiling and Baking: This is where things got interesting. The bagels puffed up like crazy in the boiling water, and in the oven, they developed this amazing golden-brown crust.
The result? Holy moly, these were the chewiest, most delicious bagels I’d ever made. The texture was incredible, just the right amount of resistance when you bite into them. I was seriously impressed. Sir Lancelot made it.
Experimenting Further
After that success, I got a little bolder. I started using Sir Lancelot in other stuff, like pizza dough and even some rye bread recipes. For pizza, it created this fantastic crust that was both crispy and chewy. With the rye bread, it gave the dough some much-needed structure, since rye flour can be a bit weak on its own.
Mixing with Other Flours
Then, I thought, “What if I combine this with other flours?” I read somewhere that you can mix different flours to get specific protein percentages. I tried blending Sir Lancelot (14% protein) with some King Arthur all-purpose flour (11.7% protein) to aim for a protein content around 12.5%. I used a mix of 35% Sir Lancelot and 65% all-purpose.
- The result: The dough made with this mix was a little easier to work with than pure Sir Lancelot, but it still had that great chew. I used it for some dinner rolls, and they came out perfect—tender on the inside, with a nice crusty exterior.
My takeaway: Sir Lancelot is definitely a powerful flour. If you’re after a really chewy texture in your baked goods, this is the one to reach for. But, it’s also pretty strong, so it might be a bit much for delicate things like cakes or pastries. For that, I’d probably stick to cake flour, or maybe just all-purpose. You gotta experiment to see what works best, right? Anyway, if you’re a bread-baking enthusiast like me, give Sir Lancelot a try. It might just change your baking game. And remember, every flour is different, so don’t be afraid to play around and see what happens! You might just surprise yourself.
