Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Flour Power

The most common type of flour used in baking is the bleached, enriched white. Beside baking, you can use it with water to make a paste for paper mache ;)

Naturally, the white flour is softer and easier for baked goods but it's not as good for you as multi-grains. To handle this problem, I use flour combinations.

First off, I only use unbleached white flour. A tad better. Then I also use WHOLE WHEAT PASTRY FLOUR. The pastry flour has more of the softer consistency like white but is whole wheat. 

I use a 1/2 and 1/2 combination of whole wheat pastry flour and unbleached white flour; however, I do not suggest starting out this way. Your family will taste the difference and may turn their noses at the healthy substitute.

I suggest starting with 3:1 ratio. In other words, if a recipe calls for 4 cups flour, add three cups unbleached white and 1 cup whole wheat pastry. No one will notice. The next time use 2 1/2 cups unbleached white and 1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry and increase each time by 1/2 a cup until you get to 1/2 and 1/2. Based on your family, you might even increase to 75% whole wheat pastry flour. It's really up to you and your family!

If this is confusing or you have your own helpful tip on going whole wheat, let me know!


2 comments:

Brian and Staci said...

Your right...you can tell a difference. I've been using King Arthur's white unbleached (I think that's the name) and the whole wheat as well...I need to check and see if it's Whole Wheat PASTRY flour though.

Miss Lisa said...

I think the WW pastry flour makes a huge difference but you cannot taste a difference (a bit nuttier but not that heavy, chewy whole wheat feel).