After reading Brave Tart by Stella Parks, I've decided that my default all-purpose flour will be Gold Medal bleached (unless a recipe specifies a particular flour).
But what about sourdough? Does it make a difference whether a starter is maintained with bleached flour or bread flour, or any of the many other white flours?
Janet
for sourdough you want to go with unbleached flour. I would stay away from bleached flour - it is not even an option where I live, all our flour is unbleached.
Leslie
Can't get bleached flour here, either.
Stella uses the bleached flour because one, she can and two it makes for a more visually (and instagramable) appealing cake. I make her strawberry and blackberry cakes and use my standard organic French pastry flour and they don't come out quite as bright and pink, but I don't care.
I'm not sure there are many people making artisans breads that would use bleached flours willingly for bread.
Stella didn't say she chose that brand because it was bleached, she chose it because it was an optimal mix of white and red wheats. This particular mix happens to be bleached. Bleached flour only plays an essential role in cake flour....non-bleached cake flour doesn't perform well in some recipes.
Bleached flour has a flavor that's off-putting in recipes with few ingredients, such as bread. The last time I made pancakes with cake flour, I found them to be inedible.
If you like to feed carcinogens to your family and friends, by all means, use bleached flour. But if you are going to be making wholesome bread, always use unbleached. King Arthur Flour won't sell the stuff, and that is the only flour that I will feed my starter. Likewise, Bob's Red Mill, another great source of organic flour, won't sell bleached flour.
Regards,
Captain Foulweather