Flour in Poland

If you go into a Polish shop you will often find a huge assortment of flours:
Mąka żytnia – rye flour
Mąka orkiszowa – spelt flour
Mąka gryczana – buckwheat flour
Mąka ziemniaczna or mąka kartoflana or skrobia – potato flour
Mąka pszenna – wheat flour
Mąka kukurydziana – cornmeal – maize flour
Mąka razowa – wholemeal flour
Mąka Grahama – wholewheat flour
Pelne ziarno – whole grain

Rye Flour – Wholemeal Wheat Flour – Wheat Flour

Some of my recipes baked with different grains

Wheat Flour

There is no self raising flour in Poland – Polish cooks add baking powder, which is often sold in little sachets, to flour as a rising agent.
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Polish food regulations require the use of a numerical system expressed as typ.
Typ is expressed as grams of ash per 100 kg of flour.
Typ is calculated as the amount of ash that remains after the complete burning of the dry mass in a sample of the product at a specified temperature.
For example – typ 500 means that in every 100 kg of flour there is around 500g of ash.
The higher the typ number the higher the gluten content of the wheat.

Popular Wheat Flours

Mąka tortowa – this is a fine cake flour – typ 450 – excellent for buns, cakes and tort (gateaux or layer cake).
Mąka krupczatka – this is a coarse ground flour – typ 450- 500 – excellent for shortcrust type pastry and crumbles.
Mąka poznańska – typ 500 – excellent for noodles, pierogi and a sauce thickener.
Mąka wrocławska – typ 500 – excellent for pancakes and yeast cakes.
Mąka luksusowa – typ 550 – excellent for yeast cakes – similar to American all-purpose flour and English plain flour.
Mąka uniwersalna – typ 480 – all-purpose wheat flour

In the past in Poland to be called chleb – bread had to contain rye, either on its own or mixed with wheat or other flours.

White bread rolls – bułeczki – would be made with mąka luksusowa – typ 550.

Nowadays you can find the kind of flour best for English style wheat bread – a strong flour – Mąka chlebowa – typ 750 – but I have not used any of these yet.

Some of my recipes baked with various wheat flours

I have found that using the specified flour really does make all the difference.

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jadwiga49hjk

I love cooking and baking. I love trying out new recipes and currently am trying out many old favourites from my Polish cookbooks and family recipes. I am trying out many variations, often to make them easier but still delicious. I collect glass cake stands and china tableware, mainly tea plates, jugs and serving dishes, many of which I use on a daily basis. They are an eclectic mixture from the 20th & 21st century. View all posts by jadwiga49hjk

9 thoughts on “Flour in Poland”

Oh thanks so much for this! Really interesting.

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I was reading a bit of Magnus Nilsson’s The Nordic Baking Book today, and he talks about the flour used in that region as being very light on gluten and so baking there is influenced by that factor. I am no scientist to be able to comment!

BTW – tried a cake from the book that had no fat – butter or oil – have you ever tried one like that? Very odd texture, almost like a macaroon.

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jadwiga49hjk says:

April 17, 2021 at 7:50 am

Gluten is like a glue and you need it for pancakes and pierogi and even more so for breads.
The tortowa – cake flour has the least gluten and the cakes I make are super light.
Without butter or oil usually is more like a biscuit.
What is called a fat free sponge in England – Just eggs, sugar and flour is very light if you use tortowa – cake flour and really whisk the eggs up. It can be quite dry and is good if you want to add some liquid such as fruit juice or rum before you add butter cream or similar. Or as a base for English style trifle.

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What flour would be used to make pazcki?