DD loves flour sack towels. She bought some from Walmart. They are fine but pretty thin. Would you consider making towels from linen? I bought yard goods from fabrics-stores.com. I've been please with their linen. Before I started sewing, I washed it on hot and dried it on hot 3 times. I choose 3 times because something I read said that is what you should do to pre-shrink linen. I have bought the All-Purpose weight and the Heavy/Rustic weight from them. Both are sufficiently sturdy. Here is a link that might be useful: Linen fabric

Could be - I don't make pie so I wouldn't know. It's from a Biltmore Estate Chef's Selection Cookbook I bought when I was there and the photo looks absolutely delicious so I thought I'd give it a try. I have a few days off from work over the Labor Day holiday and the weather's yucky so thought I'd make some things I've never tried before. For some reason I'm interested in pie - a healthy Key Lime pie recipe from Cooking LIght and this one which is not healthy. Not sure what I'm going to do with all this stuff - not having enough guests for two piesÂ..and I don't want to eat it all.

Great information already posted... Here's an expanded version. Flour 101- -The more protein, the lighter the yeast bread - up to a point. Too much protein (gluten) will make bread tough, which is why commercial flour is a combination of protein levels so that it has an average amount correct for different baking needs. -There are two types of protein that make up the gluten group - glutenins and gliadins. This is what we generally call "gluten". Glutenins provide the elastic quality that allows bread dough to expand. Gliadins play a secondary roll by contributing to the viscosity and extensibility of bread dough. -Although durum wheat has the highest amount of protein of all wheat types, the main protein in durum wheat is gliadin, which makes it excellent for pasta, not bread, because of the viscosity and extensibility. This is the type of wheat I use for wholegrain pasta. -Bread flour is highest in the protein glutenins (great for yeast breads), milled from hard wheat varieties. -All-purpose flour is a mixture of hard and soft wheat so that it fits a protein profile that suits "all-purposes" for general baking. A little too much protein for really fine cakes, a little less protein than needed for really good bread. A middle-of-the-road flour. (Source: CookWise by Shirley O. Corriher) Percentage of protein.... Durum wheat - 13-13.5% protein - used for pasta Bread flour - 11.5-12.5% - use for yeast breads, pasta, pizza Northern unbleached all-purpose flour (King Arthur) - 11.7% - use for yeast breads, cream puffs, puff pastry, pasta, pizza Northern all-purpose flour (Robin Hood, Hecker's)- 11.7% - 11-12% - use for yeast breads, cream puffs, puff pastry National brand unbleached all-purpose flour (Gold Medal, Pillsbury) - 10-12% - yeast breads, cream puffs National brand bleached all-purpose flour (Gold Medal, Pillsbury) - 9.5-12% - biscuits, quick breads, muffins Bleached Southern all-purpose flour (White Lily, Martha White, Gladiola, Red Band) - 7.5-9.5% - Pie crusts, biscuits, quick breads, muffins Cake flour - 7.5-8.5% - Cakes, quick breads, muffins, pancakes ------------------------ Whole grain flour can have as much or more gluten than commercial flours. I'm using hard white winter wheat that has 13.1% protein - excellent for yeast breads. I've worked with wheat that had 16% protein levels. It takes more kneading to develop the gluten in high-protein wheat varieties and you won't get as tender a crumb as you do with lower protein levels. I also mill soft wheat for pastry, biscuits, cakes, quick breads; or mixtures of low-gluten flour (spelt) and hard wheat to make "all-purpose" protein levels when I need lower-gluten flour (cookies, quick breads, etc.). For low-gluten "cake" flour, I use a 3:1 mixture of soft white wheat and oats (or spelt) for fine cakes like chiffon or angel food. -Grainlady

--Whole wheat pastry flour is milled from low-gluten, low-protein, soft wheat varieties. I use soft white wheat for pastry flour, or anywhere I don't need a lot of gluten development. Spelt is another good wholegrain choice when you don't need a lot of gluten development. Spelt has a gluten level that is 5,000 parts per million; compared to wheat which begins at 50,000 parts per million and go up from there. --Technically, "all-purpose" flour was developed commercially for bleached/unbleached flour from a mixture of hard wheat and soft wheat. There's enough hard wheat so it has enough gluten to make yeast breads, and enough soft wheat flour so it makes decent quick breads, pastry or cakes - so it covers "all purposes", but it's NOT the optimum choice of flour for most things, other than soft dinner rolls. We've just developed our flour use from the most common commercial flour available - all-purpose - with occasional moves to Southern all-purpose for biscuits and quick breads, and the even more elusive cake flour for beautiful tender cakes. Even in the world of commercial bleached/unbleached all-purpose flour there are great differences... Northern all-purpose flour (King Arthur and Robin Hood - 11-12) have a higher protein level than National Brands (Gold Medal and Pillsbury 10-12). Southern all-purpose flour (7.5-9.5) is milled from soft wheat, so it's best used for quick breads, biscuits, muffins, pastry, cookies, cakes - foods where you don't want a lot of gluten development. A mix of 3:2 hard wheat to soft white wheat is a great "all-purpose" mixture when you want soft yeast rolls. Otherwise, choosing a mix of hard wheat and soft wheat is less than optimum for other baked goods. --Whole wheat "bread" flour would mean a high protein level milled from hard wheat. Bleached/Unbleached bread flour has a protein level of 13-14. I've milled wheat that was 16% protein and made yeast bread with it, but it takes a lot more kneading to develop the gluten and you find you have tough bread as a result of the high protein level. This also happens when you add too much vital wheat gluten to a recipe, so more (protein/gluten) is not necessarily better. The protein levels of wheat I purchase is generally between 13% and 14% protein, which is more than enough to raise a lofty loaf of bread. If you tend to get short squatty loaves of 100% whole wheat bread, there are other factors you need to address besides protein/gluten levels - such as stop using a (quick mix) direct dough method and switch to a sponge method. A sponge will help soften the bran - the sharp edges of bran can cut the gluten strands. A sponge method also helps develop the gluten without kneading. Adding an acid ingredient (vinegar, lemon juice, ascorbic acid, etc) to the recipe has a positive effect. There is a substance in wheat germ called Gluthione which breaks down the gluten strands. Adding an acid, such as ascorbic acid, counteracts the negative effects of Glutathione. Ascorbic acid helps to prevent the gluten bonds from breaking down and will repair the gluten bonds, so you'll get a high-rising loaf of 100% whole wheat bread. I generally add 1/8 t. ascorbic acid per loaf of bread when making bread that includes wheatgerm (as a single ingredient or from whole wheat flour). -Something we tend to forget, or possibly didn't even know, hard wheat wasn't even available for milling until the late 1870's when the German Mennonites arrived here in Kansas and brought the granddad of all hard winter wheat varieties, Turkey Red, with them from Europe. Prior to the developing of the hard winter varieties of wheat, all flour was milled from soft wheat. The mills liked soft wheat for milling into flour because it was easy to grind in one pass through the mill, and had a much larger extraction of flour. Soft wheat tends to be a plumper seed with more endosperm, while hard winter wheat is small and rather wrinkled with more bran and less endosperm. You can tell the difference between hard and soft wheat when you mill it at home - the hard wheat flour is more coarse and gritty from the bran, while soft wheat renders a very soft, talcum powder feeling flour. --"Bread flour" or high protein flour milled from hard wheat, was available to commercial bakers and they referenced it by calling it "strong" wheat flour. Strong and weak wheats indicate a wheat or flour's baking strength. It wasn't until the advent of the bread machine in the 1980's that high-gluten bread flour became available for home use. Up until that time all-purpose flour, which is a medium-protein level flour, was about the only kind of flour available for home use. If "whole wheat bread flour" is called for, it means use a "regular" whole wheat flour which is milled from hard wheat, instead of "pastry" whole wheat flour, which is milled from soft wheat. -Grainlady