The lighter side of whole grains - includes recipes and a guide to different types of grains and flour - Cover Story

Vegetarian Times, March, 1996 by Nancy Ross Ryan

DO THE WORDS "heavy" and "brown" ring a bell? They will if you remember the baked goods of the 70s'. It was a decade when vegetarianism got its foothold in mainstream America, and health food stores, vegetarian restaurants and cookbooks took an all-or-nothing approach to ingredients, especially grains. If it wasn't 100 percent whole grain, it couldn't be 100 percent healthful. By and large, the biscuits, muffins, breads and pancakes of that era were irreproachably wholesome but dense, bordering on somber. A stack of 100 percent whole wheat pancakes was a serious breakfast.

Even though vegetarianism is now a way of life for some 12 million (and counting) Americans, the cuisine is no less serious, but it is infinitely more epicurean. The following recipes for biscuits, muffins, pancakes, cornbread and yeasted breads offer the nutrition and flavor of whole grains along with the lightness provided by unbleached, all-natural white flour. In addition, the recipes use canola oil or olive oil rather than butter or margarine.

When milk is used, it is reconstituted powdered nonfat milk, and may be replaced by reconstituted powdered soymilk. Regular liquid milk and soymilk can also be used, but I prefer the convenience of powdered milks as well as the lighter flavor and consistency. Keep a supply of both products in airtight containers or original packaging in a cool, dry place. Egg whites may be substituted for whole eggs.

Don't limit yourself to the whole grains used in this feature--whole wheat, white wheat, wheat bran, cornmeal, rye and buckwheat (which is not really a grain at all) also are good choices. You can even experiment with spelt, an ancient lowgluten wheat now being cultivated for the market; wheat germ, oats; and barley (see "Grain Gleanings," p. 43).

There are two ways to experiment with whole grains without jeopardizing results. Start by converting a recipe specifying all-white flour to one that contains one-third whole grain and two-thirds white. This is a tried-and-true ratio that yields satisfyingly light baked goods. As you learn to work with whole grains, increase the quantity of whole grain to half. But as you will see from some of the recipes that follow, you may have to make allowances in three ways: amount of liquid (whole grains absorb more); amount or type of leavening in quick breads (whole grains may require more); and length of time for kneading and rising in yeasted breads (whole grains take longer).

GRAIN GLEANINGS

To achieve success with your baked goods, one of the most important and easiest things to do is read labels. This ensures that you use the right flour or grain for the job. Yeasted bread, for example, can be made with all-purpose white flour, which is a blend of hard and soft wheats, or can be made with bread flour, which is made with hard wheat and has a higher gluten content for better rising. Tender, non-yeasted baked goods such as biscuits and pie dough are better made with pastry flour or all-purpose flour, as high-gluten bread flour makes them tough. Other grains, such as buckwheat and barley, are low in gluten and need a gluten boost from all-purpose white flour.

1. SOFT WHEAT: A lower protein wheat (6 percent to 10 percent) that yields flour with lower gluten. Most suitable for biscuits and cakes. Pastry and cake flours are made from low-gluten soft wheat.

2. BUCKWHEAT FLOUR: Buckwheat is not a grain, but the seed of a plant related to the rhubarb. it is ground into two dark and white varieties; the dark has more of the seed hulls in it. Both varieties are low in gluten, and must be mixed with white flour or a blend of white and whole wheat flours.

3. UNBLEACHED, ALL-PURPOSE WHITE FLOUR: A blend of hard and soft wheat flours without the bran and germ. Has less protein (hence less gluten) than white bread flour, but more than cake or pastry flour. It is bleached naturally by aging.

4. WHOLE WHEAT PASTRY FLOUR: Milled from soft wheat, this flour contains the whole grain, but has been ground to a finer texture and lighter consistency than unbleached white flour or whole wheat flours.

5. WHEAT BRAN: Also referred to as miller's bran. Purchase unprocessed, toasted wheat bran, which is the outer coating of the wheat kernel. It is high in fiber and low in calories. Add it to recipes as a fiber booster.

6. WHITE BREAD FLOUR: Milled from hard wheat, white bread flour has a high protein (hence gluten) content, and is especially suited to breads. Look for bread flour that is naturally white (unbleached) without chemicals, and not bromated. Bromated flour, used by some commercial bakers, is flour that has been treated with potassium bromate to speed up natural aging and toughen the dough for machine kneading.

7. CORNMEAL: Dried corn is processed as stone-ground or enriched degerminated. Stone-ground cornmeal is more nutritious, and contains the ground up hull and germ. It is softer in texture, richer in flavor and more perishable than commercially ground cornmeal, which is kiln-dried and ground between steel rollers that remove both hull and germ. Both are acceptable in baking.