What happened to my hazelnut flour?

LotusCakeStudio · #1 11-21-2003, 12:18 PM

Several months ago, I started buying hazelnut flour from a bulk foods store. The recipe I use calls for one cup. When I first started using it, I weighed this out several times and it was always roughly 4 oz. so for months, this is what I've been using. I buy about 2 - 3 pounds at a time and every batch has been the same. With the most recent batch, it looked like the others. Felt like the others. Then I mindlessly weighed out 4 oz. into the KitchenAid bowl. When I looked at the bottom, there was A LOT of flour. I weighed it out again, and it was the same amount. Then I measured with a cup and there was 1-3/4 cup in there! Can anyone offer some insight as to why this happened?

kokopuffs · #2 11-21-2003, 04:46 PM

Flour dehydrates as it ages. Perhaps you got an older batch of flour. As with wine, flour's characteristics can change from one batch and crop to the next.

LotusCakeStudio · #3 11-21-2003, 07:22 PM

Are you talking about wheat flour or nut flour? I've never heard of ground up nuts dehydrating. ???

kokopuffs · #4 11-22-2003, 07:30 AM

Oops, I was thinking wheat flour.

momoreg · #5 11-23-2003, 08:38 AM

Did the flour look and feel the same as it always has? Same manufacturer?

My initial guess is that the lighter stuff came from the bottom of a bigger case (shake down), which would explain the difference. Also, are you sure there were no additives to the nuts, or were they pure hazelnuts (and nothing else) in the flour?

LotusCakeStudio · #6 11-23-2003, 10:24 PM

Mich,
I'm not sure if it was from the same manufacturer or not, but I think the shake down theory might explain it. It looked and felt the same except now looking at it again, I do notice one difference: there aren't any chunks. In the previous batches, there were always a few chunks here and there that didn't get ground into flour. So that leaves me to believe it could have been the shake down at the bottom. I didn't scoop it myself so I'm not sure. I buy it from a store called The Head Nut and the product kept in the bigger containers behind the counter which they weigh for you. How should I go about using this in my recipe? Same weight or go by volume? Last time I just picked the middle number because I didn't know what the heck was going on.