What About Wheat?

What About Wheat?

Though white bread is popular and delicious, it isn't exactly the most nutritious option; generally, whole grains are the way to go. Whole grains provide our bodies with important vitamins and antioxidants as well as more fiber and protein than white breads, which helps to fill you up faster and keep you satiated longer. For those who enjoy baking at home and want to incorporate more whole grains into their diets, substituting whole wheat flour for all-purpose is a great option! However, baking with whole wheat flour presents a unique set of hurdles to overcome. Due to the dense nature of whole grains, if you substitute wheat flour 1-for-1 with all-purpose flour, you run the risk of ending up with a heavy, dry loaf of rather untasty bread. If you knead the dough too much you'll end up with a tough, chewy, gluten-string-ridden loaf. So, how do you substitute whole wheat flour for all-purpose without ruining the outcome? Here are a few tips that will hopefully clear the fog and get you on your way:

-Unfortunately, it may take some trial and error before you get the outcome you're looking for. Thus, the first time you try substituting whole wheat flour for all-purpose in a recipe, start slow. Try exchanging only 1/4 of the total flour and see what happens. If the result comes out too dry, you'll know to increase the liquid ingredients slightly. If the change in taste isn't noticeable enough, try exchanging half of the total flour.

-In recipes that were designed for white flour, you need to be careful about how much whole wheat flour you use. Recipes not built around whole wheat flour will be weighed down by the denser grains, and you'll end up with an unsavory mess. Generally, you don't want to exchange more than half of the all-purpose flour for wheat flour. Exchanging up to half of the flour total should be enough to give your favorite recipes a healthful boost without making the confection unrecognizable.

-DO NOT sift whole wheat flour. Most flours these days come presifted (Ahhh, modern technology!). However, some recipes or websites will tell you that sifting whole wheat flour helps lighten the result. Yes, this may be true, but, you're sifting out all of the good stuff that's in the whole wheat flour! Not to mention clogging the dickens out of your sifter!

-Don't try and knead breads that have had whole wheat flour incorporated until they're smooth. Bread recipes that are made with all-purpose flour or pastry flour result in a ball of smooth, matte, elastic-y dough. Recipes that have had whole wheat flour substituted in will have colored flecks throughout and be very bumpy or even rough. This is because whole wheat flour is not ground as finely as all-purpose, leaving more fiber and whole grains in the flour; thus, your dough will not be completely smooth. Attempting to knead the dough until it IS smooth will over-work the dough and create gluten strings. Since whole wheat flour is already more glutenous than white flour to begin with, allowing an excess of gluten to form will make your bread tough and unenjoyably chewy.

*Image from images.faithclipart.com