So you’ve bought the fresh fruit of your choice, and you’ve sworn a mighty oath that not a single berry shall go to waste. You’re going to make the most of those little morsels of summertime goodness. You’re going to bake. Pies. Tarts. Cakes—the good kind of fruitcakes, nothing that would give anyone scary Yuletide flashbacks. Muffins. Scones.

What kind of flour do you need?

For most baking, you’ll be looking at white flours: namely, all-purpose, cake, bread, self-rising, and pastry. Is there, in fact, a difference between all these kinds of flour, or is it just some sort of clever marketing ploy?

There is a difference, and its name is gluten. Gluten is a kind of protein found in wheat. Why should you care? Well, the more gluten in a flour, the chewier the texture. Think of gluten as a kind of organic rubber band that helps give your dough its structure.

All-purpose flour is, as the name suggests, adequate for most baking needs. It has what you’d call a medium or intermediate level of gluten in it, hence the “adequate” designation. It’s a good general flour, but for some recipes, you’d want to call in a specialist. It’ll keep up to 8 months if stored in an airtight container in a dry environment, or up to a year in a refrigerator.

Bread flour, also sometimes called hard flour, has the highest level of gluten. It also includes a little malted barley flour, and has potassium or vitamin C added to help increase volume and improve texture. (Check the label for a particular brand’s specific additives.) It’s made from high-protein hard winter or hard spring wheat, and will keep for several months in your pantry or up to a year in the freezer. It’s usually your best choice for flour when you’re baking bread.

Pastry flour is lower in gluten than bread flour, made from lower-protein wheat (often a soft winter variety). It’s not recommended for yeast breads, but does well in pie crusts, biscuits, brownies, cookies, and quick breads (breads that use leavening agents other than yeast). If you can’t find pastry flour in your grocery, you can substitute equal parts all-purpose flour and cake flour, or you can add 2 tablespoons of cornstarch per 7/8 cup of all-purpose flour. Store it under the same conditions you would all-purpose flour, though some millers recommend keeping it for only 6 months.

Cake flour is low in protein but high in starch, and is perfect for any recipe with a high sugar to flour ratio, such as cakes, muffins, and cookies. Cornstarch can be substituted for cake flour, or you can use all-purpose flour, subtracting 2 tablespoons per cup. Because of its delicate texture, I personally recommend buying only as much cake flour as you need and use it within several months of purchase.

Self-rising flour is essentially all-purpose flour with salt and leavening already added. In fact, you can make your own self-rising flour by adding 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt to 1 cup of all-purpose flour. I’d only recommend using self-rising flour in recipes that call for it, unless you’re really fond of doing recipe math and can do the necessary calculations to figure out how much self-rising flour equals the amount of AP flour with the amount of salt and baking powder/soda called for in the original recipe. Store as you would all-purpose flour.