Can I use wholemeal flour in cakes and biscuits

sashacat

I know it's "off topic", but to increase your fibre intake you can also add bran to your porridge. I just buy a big bag of bran and add it to the tin I keep the porridge in

Binxy

All the recipes I'm finding (and frankly it's not many - not sure where I'm going wrong with Google - can anyone donate any please?) say half wholemeal and half white.

Will I still get plenty of goodness from that?

He's supposed to have wholemeal scones, and wholemeal fruit cake - do you think it counts as wholemeal if it's half and half?

I do a mean fruitcake, but I'm not sure what it'd be like with wholemeal instead.

Why can I not find anywhere with decent wholemeal recipes for desserts? Or indeed anything?

super41

Hope this is relevant. When I make the topping for fruit crumble I tend to use 1/2 white, 1/2 wholemeal flour. Alternatively I crumble up a weetabix and add this and a large tablespoon of oats to the basic topping. We think it tastes more interesting than the usual which we now find really bland and is more healthy.

I have a nice recipe for a high fibre fruit loaf if anyone is interested. Please ask me offline and I'll try to get back to you in the next couple of days.

ashmit

read this for information and official links on aspartame. And don't believe everything you read on the internet!

Aspartame is not the poison it's made out to be. I personally think it's a pointless chemical, but it's not causing tumours and MS and whathaveyou.

MimiJane

ashmit wrote:

read this for information and official links on aspartame. And don't believe everything you read on the internet!

Aspartame is not the poison it's made out to be. I personally think it's a pointless chemical, but it's not causing tumours and MS and whathaveyou.

There are far more articles against Aspartame as there are for (and not just on the Internet). While there are any doubts as to its safety (and there are plenty), I choose not to eat it. Any "unnatural" substance cannot be good for you and some of the country's top nutritionists (including Patrick Holford) strongly advise against it.

squeaky

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The topic for this thread is "Can I use wholemeal flour in cakes and biscuits". If you would like to continue talking about aspartame please take it across to the Discussion Time forum.

I'll quote the offical phrasing below for you.

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Debt_Free_Chick

Re sugar in white flour ..... no, white flour does not have sugar added to it. It is, however, a carbohydrate and when eaten, the body breaks this down and one of the end results is a "sugar". In fact, just about all food can be broken down to create a natural sugar .... if that didn't happen, food wouldn't give us the energy we need to get around

Sugars exist in nearly every food - dairy products contain lactose, fruit contains fructose etc. Many savoury foods actually contain "sugar" in the form of carbohydrate - think potato!

There are two types of carbs -complex & simple. The body converts simple carbs into sugar far more quickly than it does with complex ones. As a result, you get energy far more quickly from consuming simple carbs ... but if you don't need all that energy, then the body converts any excess sugar to fat. Complex carbs mean that you get a slower, steady stream of sugar into the blood over a longer period of time, meaning that there is less likelihood of any excess and therefore less chance of fat.

Also, complex carbs are generally higher-fibre foods, so you get the added benefit of the fibre intake.

I would have thought that the difference between white & wholemeal flour, from a natural sugar point of view, is minimal. If you made no other changes to your diet, you are unlikely to dramatically increase your fibre intake simply by switching to wholemeal flour - you need plenty of other fibre too. The difference in "sugar" intake is also likely to be minimal ... but it really depends on what the rest of your diet is like.

So ... there is "sugar" in almost everything you eat, in the sense that your body converts most food stuffs to some form of sugar as part of the digestion process.

HTH

thriftlady_2

Thanks Debt Free Chick I was going to make a similar point about sugar in white flour,but you said it alot better

The easiest way to check whether a food has ADDED SUGAR is to look on the ingredients list.Sugars from carbohydrates are listed in the nutritional info,but these are not the same as the white stuff in a packet.HTH

Binxy

That's all fascinating, but can anyone reply with some actual help about wholemeal flour in recipes please?

I'm subscribed to this thread, but that seems pretty pointless as every notification of a new reply I get directs to something totally unrelated to my question.

Perhaps you'd like to start a new discussion somewhere else about aspartame and flour/sugar? Rather than take over this thread?

thriftlady_2

Binxy wrote:

Would some kind soul please answer this - can I simply replace any "plain flour" in my recipes with "wholemeal plain flour" or will it affect things?

Many thanks in advance.

Yes, you can simply replace plain flour with wholemeal plain flour.The results will taste more of wholemeal flour and be a little heavier.HTH