White/Wholeweat flour exchange experiment

CCP

budgeteer wrote: »

I made a wholewheat crust for the Woolton pie and it was fine. Did you try chilling your pastry before using? Maybe your pastry dough was warm or over-handled?

Sorry for the very delayed response!

You're probably right that my pastry was too warm and / or over-handled. I make pastry so rarely that I'm badly out of practice and I have little doubt that the heaviness was my fault rather than the flour's. I'll have to try again, maybe using half and half, and see if I can relearn my pastry-making skills.

ceridwen

Re baking with wholemeal flour - it would be a good idea for folks to see if there is a copy available of one of my cookbook collection - ie "Baking" by Mala Young. Its a 1980s cookbook and features a wide range of baked goods all using what she describes as "whole wheat and wholemeal". There are 5 copies currently on Amazon - from £3.57.

'Tis confusing even me here - as I have a paragraph in it which reads "Making pastry from whole wheat flour is considered by many to be a problem, and using the slightly lighter wholemeal flour does not really solve the problem".

Hmm...maybes what happened was the two types were both on sale in the shops and the "whole wheat" one was the "heavier" of the two and has now been totally superceded by the "wholemeal" flour.??? As to what the difference is between them....your guess is as good as mine...

What Mala says she herself does is to make very thin pastry and generally to make open flans and tarts rather than closed pies so that there is not too much heavy texture. She says she also adds a tiny pinch of turmeric to the flour to impart a golden colour. She also says she substitutes pressed crumble mixture for pastry in some recipes fora lighter texture.

She says that other people she knows "tend to make guilty little compromises" - eg putting yeast in their pastry or putting in a proportion of white flour (unbleached presumably?).

personally - on doing wholemeal pastry - I tend anyway to use recipes that just dictate one "layer" of pastry - so I would do a quiche rather than a closed top pie.

[Deleted User]

ceridwen wrote: »

Re baking with wholemeal flour - it would be a good idea for folks to see if there is a copy available of one of my cookbook collection - ie "Baking" by Mala Young. Its a 1980s cookbook and features a wide range of baked goods all using what she describes as "whole wheat and wholemeal". There are 5 copies currently on Amazon - from £3.57.

'Tis confusing even me here - as I have a paragraph in it which reads "Making pastry from whole wheat flour is considered by many to be a problem, and using the slightly lighter wholemeal flour does not really solve the problem".

Hmm...maybes what happened was the two types were both on sale in the shops and the "whole wheat" one was the "heavier" of the two and has now been totally superceded by the "wholemeal" flour.??? As to what the difference is between them....your guess is as good as mine...

What Mala says she herself does is to make very thin pastry and generally to make open flans and tarts rather than closed pies so that there is not too much heavy texture. She says she also adds a tiny pinch of turmeric to the flour to impart a golden colour. She also says she substitutes pressed crumble mixture for pastry in some recipes fora lighter texture.

She says that other people she knows "tend to make guilty little compromises" - eg putting yeast in their pastry or putting in a proportion of white flour (unbleached presumably?).

personally - on doing wholemeal pastry - I tend anyway to use recipes that just dictate one "layer" of pastry - so I would do a quiche rather than a closed top pie.

I think it's a good idea to make just one layer of pastry

Steel_2

I used wholemeal flour for Yorkshires last week when I ran out of white flour and they were fine. Rose just as well. But I made sure the oil was really hot and practically smoking and never opened the door until I was ready to take it out.

[Deleted User]

Steel wrote: »

I used wholemeal flour for Yorkshires last week when I ran out of white flour and they were fine. Rose just as well. But I made sure the oil was really hot and practically smoking and never opened the door until I was ready to take it out.

I hope to be making a toad-in-the-hole type recipe next week so I'll follow your tips. Thanks:)

[Deleted User]

Today I made my toad-in-the-hole wartime recipe, substituting wholemeal flour for the white flour. It turned out beautifully. Thanks for advice on that one :A

lisa26_2

Last week I made both flatbreads and pizza bases using 50:50 white to wholemeal bread flour. Both were fine and rose well.

ceridwen

I believe I'm correct in thinking the British Government legislates for folic acid to be added to white flour - so peeps might be interested in reading comment no 39 on this post on a blog I follow:

http://urbanhomestead.org/journal/2008/05/08/daily_bread-2/

Another reason - one I was totally unaware of - as to why its advisable to eat wholemeal flour instead of white flour. I believe the law in Britain stands at manufacturers are allowed to take all sorts of vital nutrients out of flour in the course of conversion from wholemeal to white - but have to add various things back in again (like that folic acid) to white flour only. I believe wholemeal flour hasnt had any artificial "additions".

NB; the website as a whole is well worth a look round (and checking for their videos on YouTube) for anyone interested in urban homesteading. Some happy hours of browsing...

Fire_Fox

I have used white flour plus wheatgerm very successfully in all sorts of cakes (never tried sponge) - I think the bran can make the finished article quite heavy. In fact all the goodness is in the germ - the minerals, protein, unsaturated fat and plenty of fibre. :T It will probably make a difference what sort of wholewheat/ meal flour you use too - stoneground is far coarser and lower glycaemic index, but the finest flour makes for a lighter product.

[Deleted User]

ceridwen wrote: »

I believe I'm correct in thinking the British Government legislates for folic acid to be added to white flour - so peeps might be interested in reading comment no 39 on this post on a blog I follow:

http://urbanhomestead.org/journal/2008/05/08/daily_bread-2/

Another reason - one I was totally unaware of - as to why its advisable to eat wholemeal flour instead of white flour. I believe the law in Britain stands at manufacturers are allowed to take all sorts of vital nutrients out of flour in the course of conversion from wholemeal to white - but have to add various things back in again (like that folic acid) to white flour only. I believe wholemeal flour hasnt had any artificial "additions".

NB; the website as a whole is well worth a look round (and checking for their videos on YouTube) for anyone interested in urban homesteading. Some happy hours of browsing...

Interesting reading. I will have a better look round later. I feel the same way about wholemeal flour and hope to eliminate all white flour products.