Natural hydration of flour vs humidity of location

Baron Weasel

I live in a particulary wet part of the World known as the English Lake District. I have had a hypothesis for a while that the flour we buy here contains more water than if I was to buy flour in somewhere like central Europe where the average humidity is much lower.

This has lead me to ponder that as an online community of bakers sharing recipes globally whether we need to tweak the hydration of recipes to achieve the same results? Recently I was watching a cooking show on TV and the 'celebrity chef' said that a scone recipe would need more water to an American guest if she wanted to make them at home, adding further backing to my hypothesis...

Anyone have any experience or thoughts on this?

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farinam's picture
farinam 2012 April 12

Hello Baron Weasel,

The variation in moisture content of flours is quite well known and I agree that it can have an effect on how a particular recipe turns out.

But, I think that it is up to the maker to make adjustments in the light of experience with their particular flour and climate.

Recipes (to some degree) and methods/timings should be considered to be a guide rather than an absolute - and this is one of the fascinating aspects of what we all are doing.

Good luck with your projects.

Farinam

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