plain flour
1
1.0
- noun
- UK
:
harina común
- It's just flour, like plain flour that you used to make pancake and then it makes it with boiling water.
Examples
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And then just flour, plain flour and chizzle.
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Stir in plain flour, cornflour, and baking powder until it forms a dough.
Blog text (20) -
And then I'm going to add in some salt and pepper and also a little bit of plain flour as well.
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I've also got some plain flour and some caster sugar as well.
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All-purpose/plain flour
Blog text (1) -
To make the cake, you need to mix 2 cups of plain flour with the other ingredients.
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Dip the chicken pieces in plain flour before frying to give them a crispy texture.
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For the pasta, start with a base of plain flour to create a smooth dough.
Synonyms
4
1.0
Powder from wheat used for baking and cooking
Antonyms
How Refined
Surface Forms
Morphology
A B1 learner who knows 'plain' as 'simple/not containing extras' plus 'flour' will likely infer that 'plain flour' is flour without added ingredients, so the basic idea is derivable from the parts. However, the specific technical nuance — that it lacks a raising agent (and regional naming differences like UK 'plain flour' vs US 'all‑purpose') — is somewhat lexicalized and may not be fully predictable, so it isn’t fully transparent.
Etymology
Plain flour comes from calling the word plain to mean 'simple' or 'not mixed', showing the flour has nothing added. So the name means 'flour without a raising agent', which is why recipes use plain flour when they add baking powder or other leavening themselves.