Clockwise from top: Rice, whole weat, bread, semolina

Ingredients surface and fade with each passing food trend. But flour remains the mortar, the grout, and glue that holds together our most essential recipes—then it and keeps them from sticking to the counter. No kitchen could survive without the fine, sifted meal of various edible grains.

Crucial in baked goods, achieving crispy crusts on proteins, and in a basic roux, flour’s versatility is as deep as it is wide. All-purpose flour (a blend of high-gluten hard wheat and low-gluten soft wheat) has a daily role in every kitchen, but many flours of different origins are widely available.

Wheat, rye, buckwheat, semolina, barley, triticale, rice: These grain-based flours are finding their way into recipes including breads, pastries and pastas. Nut- and legume-based flours (e.g. chickpea, chestnut) are being used similarly, while also featured as light, flavor-enhancing coatings for meat and seafood.

Chefs are using this range of flours to lend flavor, texture and subtle color to the final product. The following flours can be used alone, or mixed with other flours to produce foods with varying degrees of flavor and texture.

Bread flour is a hard-wheat flour with about 12% protein used for producing yeast-raised bread. The high-protein content correlates to the amount of gluten it produces and the subsequent flexible quality of the dough. This elastic gluten framework retains gas during rising and provides volume and structure to baked goods. This flour produces a light loaf with good volume and texture.

Pastry/Cake flour is a fine-textured soft-wheat flour that contains 7.5% protein and a high starch content. The lower gluten content causes products to have a tender, more crumbly texture.

Whole wheat flour contains the nutritious germ (the sprouting part) and bran (the outer coating) as well as the endosperm (a nutritive tissue in seed plants) of the wheat kernel, and lends a fuller wheat flavor and denser texture to the final product. In bread baking, whole wheat flour produces a smaller, heavier loaf.  If substituting a coarsely ground whole wheat flour for all-purpose flour, use 1 cup plus 2 tbsp. whole wheat flour for every cup of all-purpose flour.

Buckwheat flour has an assertive, robust flavor and dark brown color and is used in pancakes and some baked goods. Replace as much as half of wheat flour with buckwheat flour, for a heavier and stronger tasting product.

Rice flour is a fine, powdery flour made from white rice. It’s used primarily for baked goods, but acts as a good dusting agent as well. It has a 6.5-7% protein content and does not form gluten. In baked products, 3⁄4 cup of rice flour can be used in place of 1 cup all-purpose flour. Baked goods tend to be crumbly, so supplement the recipe with a thickener like arrowroot or cornstarch (1:4), or increase eggs and liquid for more tender results.

Semolina flour is made from coarsely-ground durum wheat, a hard flour with a high-gluten content (when mixed with water). The resulting dough is sturdy, yet malleable, and is used to make most pastas, especially shaped pastas and gnocchi. Also substitute semolina into bread recipes or use as a crusting agent for fish and shellfish.

• In yeast breads, a strong gluten framework is desirable, but in cakes, quick breads and pastries, too much gluten can yield a tough, chewy product.
• When substituting non-wheat flours in baked goods, follow a general 50/50 rule of regular flour to specialty flour. Some flours like whole wheat and rice absorb moisture readily, so increase the recipe’s liquid approximately 10% for a more tender product.