I've been trying to bake more with whole-grain flours (mainly whole wheat), and I thought I'd share a few of the tricks I've come up with:
1. I substitute whole wheat flour for 1/3 to 1/2 of the flour in any recipe. This works for all of the breads and cakes I bake. (I haven't tried cookies.) No other modifications needed, although you may want to add a tiny bit more water to bread doughs.
2. You can substitute 100% whole wheat flour for white flour in most cake recipes simply by adding an extra egg. Eggs are a leavener (they help baked goods rise), so this will keep your cake fluffy. Toby did this with our favorite "fruit cake" recipe last night, and it worked fantastically well! We can hardly tell the difference.
3. If you're feeding picky eaters, look for "white whole wheat" flour. It can be subbed into recipes easily, and you can't even taste or see the difference. King Arthur Flour makes a good white whole wheat flour.
I also highly recommend baking your own bread! It is not as difficult as you might think, and it's incredibly cheap. Two bread baking books I highly recommend are Peter Reinholt's "The Bread Baker's Apprentice," a fantastic primer on bread baking full of really amazing recipes (try the multigrain!) and "The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book" by Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders, and Bronwen Godfrey, a book about baking with 100% whole-grain flours.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
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5 comments:
Such perfect timing, my Mom and I were discussing this today! She is trying to figure out biscuits using whole wheat flour or perhaps oat flour. I bet this will be useful for her!
Tell her to check out King Arthur Flour's online recipe archive.
KAF also has some excellent cookbooks, including (I think) one on baking with whole grains. Every one of their recipes that I've tried is a winner, seriously. (I haven't tried any of their bread recipes, but I've tried a fair amount of their other stuff.)
Here are a few for her to try, which include conversions to whole grain flours:
Baking Powder Biscuits:
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/recipe.jsp?recipe_id=R824
Honey Shortcake Biscuits:
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/recipe.jsp?recipe_id=1157050211411
Spelt Biscuits:
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/recipe.jsp?recipe_id=R844
Hope that helps!
Fantastic, thanks! I told her about King Arthur Flours, but I had no idea they had such good resources available :)
I'm glad you brought this up because I honestly would never have thought to do anything other than substitute wheat flour for white flour at a 1:1 ratio!
Have you ever used rice flour in baking, or anything like that?
Michelle, I'd recommend starting by substituting whole wheat for 1/3 to 1/2 of the white flour in any recipe. More than that and it can throw off the chemistry, so you have to be a bit careful. Whole wheat flour absorbs more liquid, doesn't form gluten as well (which is what makes bread rise), and can really change the texture and density of baked goods.
I haven't tried baking with rice flour or other non-wheat flours, since they are SO different. I wouldn't feel comfortable making it up myself since I don't know how they handle. Do any of you guys have any good recipes for baked goods that use non-wheat grains or flours?
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