Application Guide

flour and make dense breads, so I add plenty of extra vital wheat gluten to
make a high-rising, springy loaf in the bread machine, and a good dose of fat
to keep the bread moist. There must also be plenty of liquid in whole wheat
bread doughs, as whole wheat flours continue to absorb it slowly during the
rises. A whole wheat dough that is sticky during kneading will be surpris-
ingly springy and only tacky to the touch by the Rise 3 part of a cycle. If you
do have trouble getting these doughs to bake into nice, springy loaves, you
might want to try adding a dough enhancer (see Bread Machine Baker’s
Hint: Dough Enhancers).
Graham Flour
Named after whole grain proponent Sylvester Graham in the late nineteenth
century, extra nutty and sweet graham flour is often confused with whole
wheat flour, but it is very different. It makes a different tasting and a lighter
bread because of the way it is ground; a coarse grind, it contains all of the
germ but only a portion of the bran. It may be substituted one-to-one in
whole wheat bread recipes. Graham flour breads are great favorites.
White Whole Wheat Flour
White whole wheat is a new strain of winter wheat that is especially sweet.
Its hull is white instead of red, so the color of the whole grain flour it pro-
duces is light rather than ruddy. It has all the nutrition of whole wheat flour,
but is more delicate in flavor because it lacks the phenolic compounds that
are present in red-hulled varieties. It can be used as a substitute for all-pur-
pose flour because of its light flavor, with no loss of light texture. Your bread
will look like a light whole wheat bread. White whole wheat flour contains
12 to 13 percent protein. You can substitute 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon white
whole wheat flour for each cup of regular whole wheat flour in a recipe.
Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
Whole wheat pastry flour is ground from soft wheat and is often used in
bread doughs, such as for challahor sweet rolls, in combination with bread
flour. It has just 9 to 10 percent protein, its low gluten making it best-suited
for muffins and quick breads.
Wheat Bran and Wheat Germ
Unprocessed bran and wheat germ, which add color, nutrition, and fiber to
breads, are by-products of milling white flours. Wheat germ and bran are
separated from the endosperm, which gets ground into white flour, by the
process known as bolting, likened to putting the ground grain through a fine
sieve. Wheat bran is the indigestible outer coating of the wheat berry. It is
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