Settle an argument about flour!

[Strugglingtodomybest]

If a recipe called for ordinary flour would you use:

YABU - Plain flour
YANBU - Self-raising flour

Plain.

Sf flour contains more then flour so the recipe always specifies.

Plain.

Plain.

Also plain for all purpose flour.

What recipe is it? Does it need raising agent? If it’s baking then it should have in recipe either plain flour+baking powder/bicarb of soda/yeast or just self raising flour as it contains raising agent already (recipe might call for some extra raising agent)

Flour in cooking as dusting meat, flour for thickening is definitely plain flour.

I'd assume plain.

Plain. Unless it was obvious that you needed some raising agent in the recipe and there was none elsewhere. Weird way to write a recipe though!

Plain

It’s obviously plain flour

Depends on the recipe and who wrote it. If e.g. a professional modern cookery book or the like then I’d assume plain flour. If my elderly great aunt then I’d consider the context and whether what she meant by ordinary was probably “the type of flour ordinarily used for this sponge cake / for making a simple roux.”

Plain.

However, if its cake, scones or similar and the recipe also specifies baking powder, and I only had SR flour, I'd just use that.

I'd even use SR flour if it was something like flour dusted meat, or white sauce, rather than go out and buy plain especially (I don't use that much flour, so always struggle to get through a big bag before it goes out of date and/or the weevils move in).

The only time I'd not substitute SR for plain, would be if it was something like pastry or shortbread, that had to not rise.

Plain, but where is the recipie from that it's specifying "ordinary"?

I have googled.

It appears that 'ordinary flour' means 'not bread flour', eg

Can you use Ordinary Flour to Make Bread? | Lakeland Inspiration

There were a few links, not just the Lakeland one.

I would assume its plain flour. US cook books call it 'all purpose flour'.

Self raising flour just has a raising agent added in. So if the recipe calls for plain/ordinary flour but you have to add a raising agent then I always use self raising flour.

There's no such thing as "ordinary" flour, so it would depend on the recipe.

If it was for a loaf of bread - bread flour would be "ordinary" to use.
If it was for a Victoria sponge (and no baking powder in recipe) - SR flour would be "ordinary" to use
If it was to make a white sauce - plain flour would be "ordinary" to use.

If it was an American recipe, I'd expect the term "all purpose flour" for plain flour

The fault is with whoever wrote the recipe, because the terms used were not clear.

Definitely plain flour. Self raising is for cakes.

OP,I went through Lakeland recipes.

All of their recipes are baked in tins unless it’s flatbread or foccacia which doesn’t have high rise.

Generally bread flour has minimum 11g of protein content.Anything less than that and it would be difficult for bread to support its structure. That’s why all Lakeland stuff is baked in tins and they claim you don’t need bread flour.

I haven’t tried making sourdough from ordinary flour.I use bread flour. It need to be preshaped and shaped to create a tension on the surface and support the structure so it rises up instead of spreading sideways.

I bake rye bread in loaf tins because it has low protein content hence problems with keeping shape (weak gluten network). I also bake sandwich loaf (yeast or sourdough) in the tin because it’s easier for putting in the toaster.

Depends on what bread you want to make. I wouldn’t call anything sweet bread as such.

Thank you everyone who voted!

The context of the question is that my mum was giving me her crumble topping recipe and said ordinary flour, so I said, you mean plain flour? and she said, no self-raising. Cue argument 😁

I always use plain flour for crumble. It probably wouldn't be the end of the world if you used self raising but you might be able to taste the bicarbonate.

Nigella Lawson says she only keeps self raising in and it does for everything.
I always use her crumble recipe and, because she uses SR, so do I (yes, I know, I'm a sheep baaaah). And it's a lovely crumble.
However, I voted for ordinary flour = plain because I think recipes that need SR will say so.

My DM traditionally uses SR flour for things like Yorkshire puddings and crumble and it seems fine.

It really doesn't matter and is better than keeping in 2 bags of flour that you might not get through.

Just use whichever one you have or prefer.

Well if its good enough for Nigella, who are the rest of us to question it...

I make crumble with Self raising flour using my recipe from Home Economics [old]