December 21, 2016 - 8:17pm
WW Graham Flour
I have a bag of barely-used whole wheat graham flour sitting in the back of the pantry. I remember buying it by accident, and the few times I've used it, everything turns out too dry and dense. Certainly not a flour for bread or pastries. Are there any reccommendations for what whole wheat graham flour is good for?
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after a quick google search I came across this... http://www.bakepedia.com/tipsandtricks/graham-flour/
It does say that you can make bread from it but not how to use it within a recipe. You can look up what Boston Brown Bread, or Molasses bread, is and use the recipe with Graham Flour.
It seems to be very coarse wholegrain wheat, from what I can see, and will benefit from an autolyse and higher hydration (going from this info alone and an educated guess). Probably why you are finding it dry and dense if the hydration is too low.
And then of course there's the graham cracker. Yes, that's where they get their name from. There is a link to a recipe on that site but i'll include it here... http://www.bakepedia.com/graham-crackers/
It requires graham flour for best results.
A long autolyse will definitely improve your breads that utilize graham flour, so don't be afraid to use it in bread. Pastries, not so much.
Paul
otherwise you will end up with a dry bread that will be hardly eatable. I have never baked with it but many years ago I could buy it in the bakery and was always disappointed because the bread was so dry and not enough fermented. It was not SD. With SD I think you can make a pretty good bread, especially if you will mix it with bread or AP flour.
Merry Christmas and happy baking!
Joze