I am trying to remember where I first read this substitution for white flour for use in baking recipes … and I can’t remember. I have been carrying around the scrap of paper I wrote it down on for a little while now, while I was waiting for a good opportunity to try it out. ‘
Here it is: for every 1 cup of white flour called for in a baked good recipe (not yeast bread), use instead:
1/4 c white flour
1/4 c whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 c oat flour
1/4 c almond meal
So why substitute for white flour? Have you ever heard the phrase, the whiter the bread, the sooner you’re dead? White carbohydrates (white flour, white sugar, white rice, white pasta, white potatoes) are usually highly refined carbohydrates. Highly refined carbohydrates are broken down quickly and enter your bloodstream quickly, causing a spike in your blood sugar. Plus they might play a role in slowing down your metabolism and contribute to a whole host of other disease mechanisms. Dr. Gittleman bans the white carbs completely during her 11- day detox diet.
Now we do not eat white carbs hardly ever. The only time, really, is dessert for sabbaths and feast days. I was trying to find a way to make the white flour called for in cake and pie and brownies slower- digesting and healthier. Oat flour is a slow- digesting carb, and is still light in color. Almond meal is a pale color, but is not a carb. Almonds are a good source of monounsaturated fatty acids, the good kind of fatty acids that are found in olive oil. And whole wheat flour is not as slow- digesting as oat flour, but it is much slower than white flour. The difference between whole wheat flour and whole wheat pastry flour, is that pastry flour is finer and less heavy.
This afternoon I have made italian cream cupcakes and banana bread using this flour substitution. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Update: The first thing you have to do, if you are determined to make a cake with any kind of whole wheat flour, is change your expectation of the finished product. The cake is not going to be white, or light. And it was not. It was sort of a caramel color. And it was not light in texture as cake normally is. And finally, it was drier than this cake normally is. So some tweaking is necessary. The banana bread, however, turned out wonderfully.
