Plain Flour is also known as all purpose flour or maida. It is nothing but a refined wheat flour. Plain flour is a perfect blend of soft and hard wheat. This flour is considered as a bleached flour, that has less protein compare to unbleached. Bleached flour is highly used in all over the countries and is used for making variety of cakes, cookies, waffles, pastries, breads and pie crusts.
There is a huge demand of unbleached flour as well, it is highly used for making puff pastries, cream puffs, puddings, eclairs, yeast breads and so on. Like from the word “all-purpose”, you can guess that maida is an important type of flour, that is used for almost every purpose in cooking.
Foods or dishes which are made from maida are very healthy and tasty. In some of the Indian regional food items, maida plays a vital role and used a common ingredient for making several recipes, especially in south India.
All purpose flour is easily available at every grocery store. You can get the packaged as well as the bulk containers of all-purpose flour. Always look for a well packed flour, having the pure white color with soft texture and powdery form. Never buy the flour, that is having pale yellow color or dusty particles and chunky packaging.
USES:
- Maida can be used for making variety of naans, Punjabi bhature, roti’s, rolls and wraps.
- It is widely used for coating purpose, you can coat the fruits and nuts before mixing into the batters, in this way at the time of baking you can prevent your food items from sinking to the bottom of the pan.
- Maximum portion of maida is used for making several types of white breads, which is highly accompanied with everyday breakfast and evening tea.
- Maida is commonly used for making different country special bakery items such as bread, cakes, pizzas, biscuit, toast, pastries and Indian as well as International sweets, etc.
- Generally it fulfill the purpose of baking, in this way this flour designs body, structure, texture and flavor of the baked products.
- It is also useful for baking items or doves from the sticking to the surfaces.
- In Indian cooking, chefs and households are using this flour especially for bindings and preparation of batters.
- This flour is immensely used to coat the fried food, it gives crispiness and flavorful crust to the recipe along with tenderness and juiciness.
- All Purpose flour can be used for making variety of delicious Indian bread recipes, such as puri, naan, kulcha, paratha and roti (chapati).
- This flour has a best use at the time of thickening the sauces, creams and several pie fillings.
STORAGE:
- This is very important to store the flour in a proper way at cool and dry place.
- Always store it in a quality food container, that can facilitate breathing to the flour.
- Never store this flour in air tight container.
- Keep this flour away from the wet and moisture areas that can cause odours and greasiness.
- Store it away from the onions, garlic and other food items with strong odours.
- If this flour is stored well, then can have good shelf life of about 6-8 months.
- If you observe any smell or changing color in the flour, then please throw it out, as it is not good for your health.
- You may put a bay leaf in the flour to protect against the insect infections, as they are the natural insect repellents.
BENEFITS:
- Maida consists the Refined carbohydrates, hence it has a high glycerin index.
- Generally foods made from this flour can not be considered healthy and does not have any special health benefits.
