Bread is basically just flour, water, and yeast, so it's pretty hard to make it inedible unless you burn it to a crisp in the oven.
The difference between all-purpose flour and bread flour is gluten strength; if you substitute all-purpose flour then your bread won't rise as high or be as strong; this is a desirable quality in, say, cake, but not bread.
However, AP flour isn't that far off from bread flour in terms of gluten; while cake flour may be as low as 6% and bread flour can be as high as 14%, AP flour tends to weigh in at around 10% or more, which is why it's called "all-purpose". As Michael says, yeast bread is actually not as sensitive to the exact quantities as (for example) most pastries, but it's still better to use a recipe that was actually built around AP flour instead of just trying to substitute it for bread flour.
If you are determined to make the substitution, then I would suggest you try to find some wheat gluten and add a small amount of that to the AP flour. Mathematically, if you assume that you're lacking some 3% protein, then you'd want to add about 1 tbsp of gluten for every 2 cups of flour. It's really not much, though, and if you don't have or can't find wheat gluten then your bread would probably survive anyway with AP flour, it just might be a little denser than you expect.
This article, from the Examiner, indicates:
Garbanzo bean flour (a.k.a. gram flour, chana flour, besan, chickpea,
or cici flour) should be a pantry staple. Unlike other bean flours,
garbanzo bean flour does not have to be combined with other flours
(although you can do it if you wish). Garbanzo flour is high in
protein and gives a slightly “beany” flavor to baked goods.
However, they are not focused on food issues, and may not be the most reliable source.
According to Living Healthy Mom, you can use chickpea flour as a flour substitute, but they recommend no more than 75% replacement (garbanzo bean is another name for chickpea):
Garbanzo bean flour- I know this gluten free flour doesn’t sound appetizing, but it is delicious, healthy and is a wonderful primary
gluten free flour that you can use up to 75% in a recipe. And…………..NO,
I know what you are thinking……… it doesn’t taste like beans! (I
thought the same thing!)
Again, not the same as a university extension center, but at least a practicing individual who tries these kinds of things.
Given that cookies are made from a structure of starch rather than gluten, the lack of glutens from wheat flour should not be an issue. However, chickpea flour also contains less starch
One brand of garbanzo bean flour indicated that it had 18 grams of carbohydrates per 30 grams of product on its nutritional information; that same brand's pastry flour (a wheat flour) had 27 grams of per 34 g of product. As you can see, chickpea flour has significantly less available carbohydrates (mostly starch, some sugars) to form the structure of the baked goods. This will change the texture and structure development.
In general, gluten free baking experts recommend using a mix of flours to substitute for wheat flour, depending on how it is being used, in order to get the best possible outcome. If your goal is not to be gluten free, only substituting for 50% of the recipe amount may provide good compromise on the outcome.
Bottom line, in a cookie, you would expect when substituting 100% chickpea flour for wheat flour:
- Different texture, due to less starch and more protein. My best guess is that it will be a little more fragile, due to less starch structure, but I have never tried this.
- Different flavor, due to the fact that beans taste different than grains
Update after the question was edited to talk about the effect of leavening:
In a cookie, the structure of the final product is based on gelatinized starches. With the reduced quantity of starch in the chickpea flour compared to wheat flour, there is simply less of a starch network present. This may reduce the capacity of the cookie to retain the gas generated by the baking powder or baking soda, and thus a flatter, less airy product.
Best Answer
Maida is wheat flour similar to what is sold in the US as cake flour. Like cake flour, maida is finely milled, and it has less protein than all purpose flour. You can use it for bread and cakes, as well as chapatis, parathas and puris.
To achieve a flour more like all purpose or other flour types, you can add gluten to maita. According to The Fresh Loaf, maida typically contains 7.5% gluten (if anyone can find a more authoritative source, please edit accordingly).
Cooking for Geeks has a good article about the gluten content of other flours:
So, again according to The Fresh Loaf:
According to the original author of this answer, "You might find that bread and cakes made with maida don't keep as well as the same things made with all-purpose flour, but home baking never stays around for more than a day in my experience."