Have You Flour Is The Foundation Imagine a world without cook ies, bread, cake doughnuts, pret zels, spaghetti, biscuits, pies, pan cakes, muffins, pizza, waffles, or rolls! What an untasty picture! Happily, North America’s repu tation for bountiful harvests rests in a large measure on the magnifi cent wheat crops grown on mil lions of fertile acres. There are es sentially two kinds of wheat grown: hard and soft. (A third wheat, important to the American diet but not to most homemakers, is a hard wheat variety called du rum, which is used in making pas tas.) * Experienced bakers know there "ir Great Tractors That Just Got Better THE ENTIRE FORD TRACTOR LINE IS BETTER THAN EVER LAWN & GARDEN FARM 0% For 24 Mo*.» 1.9% For 12 Mo*. 6.9% For 24 Mo*. 8.9% For 86 Mos, 9.9% For 48 MOi. 10.9% For 60 Mos. * Compact Diesels Only or WAIVER OF FINANCE CHARGES ON SOME MODELS TILL JUNE I. 1990 -<»-* PAT CASH AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OP BIG CASH REBATES See LANCASTER FORD TRACTOR ■ F rJ , ing wn~ua"cnm~~ For NEW HOLLAND SKID LOADERS To Qualified Buyers C~Z. "Vl'i LANCASTER FORD TRACTOR, me. 1655 Rohrerstown Road, Lancaster, PA i, JL J Flory Mill Exit off Rt 283 11 (717) 569-7063 YOUR LANCASTER COUNTY RELIABLES FOR FORD TRACTORS & NEW HOLLAND INDUSTRIAL EQUIP. GSEQ By Doris Thomas Lancaster Extension Home Economist is not one particular flour best for all types of baking. Various flours have different characteristics making each more suited for one product than another. How, then, docs the novice choose a flour most suited to her purpose? The key to flour differences is gluten - formed when the water soluble proteins present in wheat are com bined by manipulation in the pre sence of a liquid. The variation of protein content in each type of wheat correlates with the baking characteristics of a particular flour. The amount of protein pre sent in a flour determines the amount of gluten which can be de veloped and this determines the LANCASTER FORD TRACTOR LLS and SERVIC DOS ffliW |g OLD FAVORITE RD TRACTOR Lancaster Ford Tractor And See For Yourself FORD FORD for for FARMING LANDSCAPING FORD NEW HOLLAND PROGRAMS % suitability of each type of flour for various baked products. Hard wheat, grown on western prairie land, has a high gluten con tent and is milled into “bread” flour. Hard wheat flour has great elasticity that allows it to be stretched and rolled into an in credibly thin sheet for strudel or phyllo, or folded and rolled again and again to make puff pastry and Danish dough. Bread flour has returned to the shelves of supermarkets after an absence of two generations. If bread flour is scarce in your mar ket. you may substitute “un bleached” flour. This flour is bleached in an aging rather than a chemical process, and it is milled from a blend of hard wheats. Soft wheat, grown in the milder regions of middle and eastern America, produces a flour lower in gluten, one that is ideal for bak ing such products as pastries, crackers, pretzels, cookies and cakes. At the lower end of the gluten scale is “cake” flour. It has only enough gluten to hold the cake together in the oven while a delicate and tender, yet stable, structure of cells is firmed. A little higher up the gluten scale is “pas- try” flour, which is ideal for pie and tart doughs because it can tolerate a considerable amount of fat, such as butter, lard or margar ine. without becoming tough. If you cannot And pastry flour On your supermarket shelves, a satis factory substitute can be blended at home with 60 percent cake flour and 40 percent bread or unbleach ed flour. At mid-range on the gluten scale is “all-purpose” flour, a blend of soft wheat flours, which has been developed by the na tion’s millers to take care of a wide range of baking needs from breads and biscuits to pies and cakes. It can be substituted for other flours in recipes that call for bread flour or pastry flour. It will not rise as high as bread flour or be as tender as pastry flour, but it is a worthy substitute. It is easy to check the protein or gluten content of a flour by look ing at the paragraph of nutritional information on the package. Al though figures vary somewhat from brand to brand and mill to mill, here is the range: bread flour, 14 percent; unbleached, 12 per cent; all-purpose, 11 percent; pas- ILdzhhl FORD for INDUSTRIAL INDUSTRIAL 1.9% For 12 Mo*. 6.9% For 24 Mos. 8.9% For 66 Mos. 9.9% For 48 Mos. 10.9% For 60 Mos. or PAT CASH AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OP BIG CASH REBATES LAWN ft GARDEN 1.9% For 12 Mos. 9.9% For 24 Mos. 8.9% For 36 Mos. 9.9% For 46 Mos.* * LOT Diesel Only Lancaster Fanning, Saturday, January 13,1990-813 try, 8 percent; and cake, 7 percent. Hour freezes and keeps for pe riods of a year or more. If you have extra freezer space, watch supermarket shelves for bargains. A final and important note about flour For all doughs, the measurement of one of two in gredients must be taken as ap proximate the flour or the liq uid. The ability of the flour to ab sorb moisture varies from harvest to harvest, bag to bag and month to month as the humidity changes and the flour absorbs or releases moisture. If a recipe calls for a precise amount of flour, the liquid must be added carefully so as not to over load the flour. If the recipe calls for a precise amount of water, add the last portion of the flour slowly and carefully. It is better to have a moist dough that will stiffen in your refrigerator than a hard and unforgiving cannonball for which there is no hope. In batters, the measurement of flour and liquid can be precise. The determining factor then be comes the length of time the dough will be in the oven. The burden rests on the temperaature and the length of oven time to cor rect any imbalance there is in the moisture of the dough. Control Of Your Money WEST CHESTER (Chester Co.) Taking Control of Your Money is a series of five lessons that allows you to leant to manage your money in the relaxation of your own home. The areas cover ed include: how to organize your family records, completing an in ventory of your financial re sources, figuring your family’s net worth, setting financial goals, analyzing your saving and spend ing plan and credit use. The first issue will be mailed in the spring. To receive Taking Control of Your Money, contact the Chester County Cooperative Extension, 235 W. Market Street, West Chester, PA 19382; 696-3500. There is a charge of $3.50 (pay able to Chester County Coopera tive Extension) to cover postage and handling. The deadline for re gistering to receive Taking Con trol of Your Money is February 2, 1990. WEST CHESTER (Chester Co.) Parents of children 18 months to 3 years old, and other adults who take care of preschool ers in Chester County, can get helpful and timely information on all aspects of rearing young chil dren from Toddler Topics, a four part series of home-study newslet ters prepared by Penn State Co operative Extension. Articles include bed-time hassles, meal time problems, helping your child understand aging and rainy day ideas. The first issue will be mail ed in the spring. To receive Toddler Topics, con tact the Chester County Coopera tive Extension, 235 W. Market Street, West Chester, PA 19382; 696-3500. Deadline for register ing to receive Toddler Topics is January 26, 1990. There is no charge. Take Tips For Raising Toddlers