Chef Ambassador · Pastry Flour
Antonio Bachour on Why Flour Is the Foundation of Pastry
Antonio Bachour was named World's Best Pastry Chef in 2018 and again in 2022. He runs Bachour Bakery and a culinary school in Miami, has published five books, and travels roughly 200 days a year teaching pastry chefs in 40 countries. He has been the brand ambassador for Le Sinfonie since 2021.
We sat down with him in his Miami kitchen to ask one question: why flour?
Why does flour matter so much to you?
"Because everything sits on it. You can have the best butter in the world, the best chocolate, the best fruit. If the flour is wrong, none of it matters. The croissant collapses. The cake is dense. The sponge does not rise. Most pastry chefs do not think about flour the way they think about chocolate or vanilla. That is the mistake. The flour is everything."
What made you choose Le Sinfonie?
"Consistency. I have been doing this for 30 years and I have used every flour you can imagine. The thing about Le Sinfonie is that the bag I open today is the same as the bag I opened six months ago. When I am training 40 pastry chefs at a master class in Dubai, I cannot have a flour that performs differently than the one I tested with in Miami. Le Sinfonie gives me that. The consistency I demand."
The flour is everything. Le Sinfonie gives me the consistency I demand. - Antonio Bachour
Walk us through your flour decisions in a typical week.
"For croissant and viennoiserie I use Le Sinfonie Croissant. It is engineered for lamination. The W-strength is exactly right. Soft enough to roll, strong enough to hold the layers. For sponge cake and génoise I use Pan di Spagna. It is a flour for lightness. For my brioche and panettone I use Lievitati or Magistrale depending on the ferment time. Each one is a tool. You would not use a paring knife to butcher a pig. You would not use bread flour to make a sponge."
What is the most common mistake home bakers make with flour?
"Two things. One, they use the wrong flour for the wrong job. Two, they do not weigh it. A cup of flour can vary by 30% depending on how packed it is. If you scoop, your recipe is broken before you start. Buy a scale. Use the right flour. That is 80% of pastry right there."
What do you tell young pastry chefs about ingredient sourcing?
"Spend the money on the foundation. People want to spend on the finishing touches, the gold leaf, the rare chocolate. I tell them, no. Spend on the flour. Spend on the butter. Spend on the eggs. The base is what makes the pastry. Everything on top is decoration."
You are training the next generation. What do you want them to take away from working with you?
"That this is a craft. Not a content category. Not a TikTok format. A craft. You learn it by repeating things 10,000 times until your hands know what your brain has not figured out yet. The flour, the butter, the temperature, the timing. You feel it. And when you feel it, you can teach it. That is what I want them to take away. The feeling."
