The New Flour Power

Pastry chefs are nerding out on whole-grain flours from small mills around the country.Now, home bakers can get in on the action.

- KAREN STABINER

THE FRUIT Scone you crave at your favorite bakery, the restaurant bread you can't resist, the farmers market tortillas that sell out before you get there: If you wonder why they're better than anything else around, it's probably the flour.

Specifically, we're talking about small-batch wholegrain flours from a growing network of farmers and millers around the country. More than a blank canvas for fruit and chocolate and cream and spices, these flours are as nimble as all-purpose but contribute to taste and texture in a way it can't.

"I don't like the term 'allpurpose," said Kelly Whitaker, co-founder with his wife, Erika Whitaker, of Id -Est hospitality group and its Dry Storage grain mill, both in Boulder, Colo. "Every flour has a purpose." He views all-purpose flour as a supporting player that provides stability for more idiosyncratic grains.

Erika Chan, pastry chef at the Catbird Seat in Nashville, has started to subtract other ingredients from recipes to let the flour-from Janie's Mill, 80 miles south of Chicago-shine. "I have a cruller on the menu right re now, and I'm OK for it to have no spices," she said.

"Because it's made with really great flour." t d Play With It Like any interesting new acquaintance, specialty flours require extra initial effort: Pay attention to how they behave and be willing to tinker with a recipe to make them happy.