January 11, 2012 - 8:00pm
Can I soften whole wheat flour to make whole wheat pastry flour?
I have recipes that call for whole wheat pastry flour, I have whole wheat flour, bread flour, cake flour and AP flour along with potatoe and corn starch. Can I make something equivalent to the whole wheat pastry flour by combining the whole wheat flour and one of the starches to soften it?
Share
I don't know about softening ww flour, but someone, I think it was Rose Beranbaum, suggests sifting whole wheat flour to get most of the bran out.
Thank you for the reply, but I want the bran in it, it is the reason to use whole wheat flour. Rose was I think making it work in a formula for regular all purpose or something. The recipe's I read were written for whole wheat pastry flour, so I guess the bran is already figured in for water, etc. My customer wants products that contain fiber.
I've seen whole wheat pastry flour in the bulk bins at health food stores. It is milled quite differently than the usual whole wheat flour in that the bran is also milled very fine. So check your local health food store.
...should be milled from *soft* wheat. Most whole wheat flour is made from hard wheat.
You could try mixing whole wheat flour from hard wheat with unbleached all-purpose flour if you're not adverse to using some white flour. Maybe try 50/50 (by weight, if possible).
What recipes are you using that call for whole wheat pastry flour?
I do some baking for an adult day center and was asked to do muffins, etc with extra fiber, low or no sugar for diabetics, etc. for breakfast/ morning snack. When I started looking at diabetic and healthy items for a muffin or other pastry items some had 'whole wheat pastry flour' as the flour. I was thinking gluten content of flours is the main difference because it is already taking the extra bran into account. But then I have never bought/used whole wheat pastry flour so I wasn't sure. I am thinking the gluten in whole wheat fl is around 12-14 and pastry around 8-9? So I thought just substituting a starch (corn or potato) would help to lower the gluten content?? I seemed to remember once reading something about that.
I bake a lot with whole wheat pastry flour. There have been times when I've run out and was forced to substitute but nothing ever worked quite as well. Hard wheat flour is never a good substitution because of the reasons stated above. Are you having trouble sourcing it or do you just want to avoid purchasing/storing another ingredient?
Two recipes in which I've used ww pastry flour are Hokkaido Milk Loaf (as a sub for white cake flour) and Irish Soda Bread. Both turned out great--anecdotally, better than other bakes of those breads with substitutes. Can't really say whether the success was due to that one ingredient, but I liked the results enough to make a note on my recipes.
Unfortunately my local natural food store does not carry the bulk form of the flour, I have to look at their bags.. but they are expensive and I might be able to get it online cheaper. They aren't all that accomodating either. I happen to live about 2 hours from the closest Whole Food Mkt and about 1+ hour from another natural food store, co-op, that I think does have it in bulk.
From what I am reading I might be better off just using the cake flour I have and maybe swap out a 1/2 C or so of the whole wheat so I have some of the fiber.