Flax Flour

Flax flour is ground up flax seeds. It tends to be coarse, like wheat bran.

Flax flour can be hard to buy; you often need to grind the seeds yourself to make it, or special-order it.

Commercially, you can also get “defatted” flax flour, which has some of the oil removed; this gives it a finer texture.

Flax Flour helps baked goods to brown quickly

When using it in a recipe, use it in limited quantities, and boost liquid by 1 tablespoon for every 3 tablespoons of flax flour used, because flax is very water-absorbent.

The gummy properties of the fibre in the seed can help improve bread loaf volume a bit, if other compensations are also used.

You can swap in up to 15% flax flour in a bread recipe, but you may wish to increase yeast a bit, up to about 25% more if you’ve swapped in 15% flax flour.

Some advise that up to ⅓ cup of oil or shortening can be replaced by 1 cup of flax flour, but they don’t give any moisture adjustments if you use shortening.

You can also cut back a bit on other fat in the recipe, if you are using a substantial amount of flax flour.

Equivalents

¼ cup (4 tablespoons) whole flaxseed equals 7 tablespoons of Flax Flour

Storage Hints

Store ground flax at room temperature for up to 4 months.