Manitoba: What is it?
Manitoba flour "properly so called" is a flour obtained by grinding wheat grown in the northern regions of America and southern Canada, territories once colonized by the Manitoba tribe of "reds".
Gluten
Manitoba flour is a flour that is obtained from a variety of semi-hard wheat, characterized by the high content of glutenin and gliadin. These two peptides, when activated by water, give rise to gluten, a reticular and elastic protein that incorporates leavening gases allowing the "growth" of the dough, with the formation of typical bubbles appreciable in the spongy structure of bread and other leavened products.
Forza della Farina
Each flour containing gluten, if mixed with water, acquires a certain level of "STRENGTH" (parameter obtained from the correlation between tenacity index and extensibility index); this characteristic represents the most important property of the flour and is assessed by means of classification in a numerical scale (W) ranging from <90 to about 370.
| Flour strength - prof. Franco Antoniazzi - University of Parma | |||||
| Strength (W) | W <90 | W from 90 to 160 | W from 160 to 250 | W from 250 to 310 | W from 310 to <370 |
| Origin | Flour not suitable for baking. | Weak flours, for biscuits. | Medium strength flours used for soft breads (such as Pugliese, Ciabatta, French) and hard pasta (Ferrarese) or for the refreshment of natural yeast. | Force flours used for the production of breads such as Rosetta, Biove, Baguete. | Flours used for long fermentation doughs, including manitoba flour. |
Use in the kitchen
Manitoba flour lends itself as a pastry base for long-rising and high-fat sweets, such as panettone, pandoro, doves, etc .; on the contrary, weaker flours (in addition to having a lower concentration of gluten) would undergo the "weakening" effect of fats on "elastic gluten mesh", to the detriment of leavening.
Manitoba flour is also the starting point for the extraction of proteins for the production of seitan .
Nutritional Properties
Manitoba flour is used almost exclusively in form 00 (without bran and with very fine grinding); similarly to other refined flours, this characteristic favors the rapid digestion and absorption to the disadvantage of the glycemic and insulin index. It is also true that this aspect has a relative nutritional importance since, after all, the metabolic impact of a food subordinates to the composition of the dish or the overall meal; however, by virtue of its resistance to fats, manitoba flour is often associated with considerable quantities of lipids which, in conjunction with a significant insulin stress (depending also and above all on the high food portions), increase its own fat storage capacity ( fattening effect). Ultimately, it is not so much manitoba flour that represents an obsolete ingredient, but most of the foods for which it is used (panettone, pandoro, donuts, doves, pandoro, croissants, etc.).
All Alice's Video Recipes based on Manitoba flour.
| Comparison of nutritional values of Panettone and Manitoba flour required | ||
| 100g Panettone | Manitoba flour used in 100g of Panettone | |
| Energy (kcal) | 333.0 | 126.0 |
| Proteins (g) | 6.4 | 4.5 |
| Carbohydrates (g) | 56.2 | 23.1 |
| Fats (g) | 10.7 | 0.4 |
Celiac disease
If it is true that manitoba flour is a quality ingredient for bread-making, by virtue of the high quantity of gluten, it is also true that there is a "downside"; this protein is the subject of a quite serious intolerance, celiac disease . It involves a very heterogeneous symptomatology based on the specific case and is distinguished from other forms of food intolerance due to the presence of a peculiar immune response. It follows that, in the presence of celiac disease, the accidental ingestion of a mixture of manitoba flour compared to that of the same mixture with weak flour may lead to a decidedly more intense reaction and symptomatology.
