Guide to Italian Flours — Nina's Pasta Project (2024)

FAQs

Guide to Italian Flours — Nina's Pasta Project? ›

Grano duro is slightly yellow, more granular, and more commonly used for pasta and some breads in the south of Italy. It's also knows as durum wheat flour. Grano tenero is generally what we think of as white flour, and is more broadly used in bread, pizza, and pastry, and northern pasta doughs.

Semolina: Coarse Durum Wheat Flour

One of the most popular flours for making pasta is semolina flour, which is a coarsely ground flour made from a particularly hard variety of wheat called durum.

Type 2 flour: also known as "semi-wholemeal" flour, it is a flour characterized by large granules and a greater quantity of fibrous components and seed germ compared to the previous ones. It is a flour that has excellent nutritional characteristics and is easier to process than whole wheat flour.

Which 00 flour should I buy? 00 flour, or doppio zero is what most Italian households use to make fresh egg pasta. The white Italian flour is finely-milled, resulting in grains which are finer than semolina, but larger than cornflour.

For cookies, bars, cakes/cupcakes, biscuits, scones, or anything that needs a tender crumb, use Farina di grano tenero, 00. This is your “cake flour.” Nobody wants a chewy cake. For bread, I recommend starting off with Farina di Manitoba, grano tenero, 0; this is similar to standard American bread flour.

Italian flour, like other European flours, is categorized differently, on a numerical scale: 2, 1, 0 or 00. This number does not refer to the percentage of gluten or protein in the flour, but rather, to how finely ground it is (2 being the coarsest and 00 being the finest).

The semolina flour adds a bit more structure to the dough, which is helpful for shapes like garganelli or farfalle where you want the pasta to “stand up.” You could replace the semolina flour with equal parts 00 flour for a more tender and soft dough, which could be good for something like tagliatelle.

00 flour, also known as doppio zero ('double zero') is a super fine white flour from Italy, and considered the gold standard for making pasta and pizza bases.

Semola and semolina flour are mainly used for making pasta, couscous, and some rustic cakes. Semolina has a coarse texture similar to polenta, while semola is flour. You might use semolina to make a breakfast porridge or sweet pudding, or under your pizza dough to keep it from sticking.

Semola Di Grano Duro Rimacinata

Italian semolina flour types differ by how finely they've been ground, like soft wheat flour. Semola (the Italian word for semolina) rimacinata is basically the semolina flour equivalent of type 00 flour.

What is the difference between durum and semolina pasta? ›

Durum vs Semolina

The difference between durum and semolina flour lies in the consistency of the flour. A byproduct of the milling process to create semolina is durum flour, an even finer flour. Durum flour may be milled multiple times once separated from the coarse wheat middlings (semolina).

Flour strength is measured by a W-value. A weak flour usually has only 8–9% protein, which corresponds to a W-value between 90 and 180. Super strong (i.e. super glutinous) flour can have up to 15–16% protein, which corresponds to a W-value between W 350–380.

Made in Italy

Taking a bite of something made with our flour is like taking a bite of Naples.

Italian flour is graded on a scale from 00 (the finest) through to 2 (a coarser flour), with integrale being the coarsest flour. Both grano duro (hard wheat) and grano tenero (soft wheat) are used to produce flours of different grades.

Due to our high quality wheat, our "00" Baking Flour (Previously known as Pastry Flour!) is higher in protein than most in the US. It absorbs the moisture and fats to create light, fluffy, flaky, delicate textures in all your favorite pastries and sweet treats.

Tipo 00 flour from Italy is equivalent to type 550 white flour in Germany or Switzerland. The degree of grinding and ash content are very similar.In Italy, only other type designations are used.

In Italy, flour is categorized based on the ash content - basically how refined the flour is. The higher the ash content, the more germ and bran left in a flour, and the less refined it is. Flour is also categorized as grano duro (also listed as semola flour) and grano tenero (a softer type of wheat).

The best flour for making Neapolitan Pizza Dough is 00 Pizza Flour. This type of pizza dough is thin and crispy with a slightly chewy texture. 00 Pizza Flour is an Italian-milled, finely ground wheat flour. It is perfect for Neapolitan Pizza Dough because it produces a light and airy crust with a slightly chewy centre.

No matter how the flour gets processed, the Italian kind is already softer, slightly sweeter, and lower in protein (i.e. gluten), while American wheat is already harder, slightly more bitter, and high in protein (i.e. gluten).

(The Italian semolina flour used for pasta is a very fine grind, much finer than what is frequently sold in the U.S. as semolina flour.) Semolina flour with a “well” of water in the center. To make this pasta, we folded the water into the flour and made a neat ball of dough; then let it rest briefly.