100% Whole Wheat — Fact or Fallacy?
Seth Godin is talking here about the marketing of “whole wheat” bread, and this brings up something I’ve wondered about ever since I started baking my own bread.
You see, you can’t really bake bread using 100% whole wheat flour and have it come out like, well, bread. When you bake whole wheat bread at home, the recipe is generally about 3:1, 3 cups of “white” flour to a cup of whole wheat. This gives it the soft, spongy texture we all recognize as bread.
If you used all whole wheat flour, it would come out like some something more resembling a brick. So maybe it’s not even possible to have 100% whole wheat bread, anyway.
I think the intended meaning of the phrase was about the parts of the grain they use to make up the “whole” wheat portion of the mixture. Quite often, the germ is left out, even when it’s called “whole” wheat, so I’m thinking that’s what is meant.
What we recognize as regular white flour, is after all, made from wheat, but only the soft inner portion of the grain.
More then you ever wanted to know about flour can be found here.
January 9th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
Trudy,
I’m sorry, but you are just absolutely wrong about not being able to make 100% whole wheat bread and have it light and delicious. Follow this recipe using a Bosch mixer and I promise you will love the results:
100% Honey Whole Wheat Bread by Anna Marie Roberts Mesa. AZ
3 C. very warm water
1 T. active dry yeast
1 T. lecithin or 1/3 C. corn oil
1 T. salt
1/3 C honey
Place these ingr. into your Bosch bowl. Start with 6 1/2 C. of warm (fresh from your grain mill if possible) flour. Turn on your mixer to 1 or low and then continue adding flour a half cup at a time until the dough comes completely clean from the sides of the bowl. Knead on 1 or low for 12 minutes. Let rise covered in a lightly greased bowl until double in size. Punch down, place on counter and shape your loaves. Let rise in loaf pans until double in size and bake at 350 for 27-30 minutes for large pans and 19 minutes for mini loaves. You can butter tops as you take them from the oven to cool.
This recipe is tried and true. I’ve been using it for 28 years. It makes delicious, mouth watering 100% whole wheat bread. I use a combination of Hard Red Winter Wheat and Hard White Wheat. My family loves it. I know yuurs will too.
Melissa Cox
Mesa, AZ