What Will it be, Wheat or White?

A long time ago, in the first few days of my reaching the American shores, I went up to the Subway counter to order lunch, “Wheat or White?” I had not the foggiest what I was being asked…wheat-or-white what? So began my introduction to the land of mind-boggling choices (and fractioned sentences)! Actually, it happened on the way itself, when the stewardess asked, “regular or decaf?” Ahem, err…regular what? And what the heck was decaf, anyway? But, I am quite sharp, you see. I looked at the carafe in her hand, and decided to settle for regular till I figured out what decaf was. Turned out, I had made the right choice.

Like I noted earlier, last week was a lot of cooking from my favourite blogs. I make my own bread, dinner rolls, and pizza often. When I read that the ‘brown’ bread we were eating was not necessarily much different from the white one, I stopped buying that. But some times you want bread and would like to eat it guilt free. Of course, roti is healthier since you do not need to add oil/butter or salt into the dough. But bread is bread.

Naturally, I substitute whole wheat flour, by at least half, in every recipe that calls for all purpose flour. So, the other day my son suggested that I should bake a 100% white bread the next time (presumably, to check if the reason for the denser texture was his mother’s baking or really the whole wheat flour!).

Actually, even I wanted to know.

So I decided to try Nic’s recipe for Classic White Bread. Then I found I did not have nearly enough flour for two loaves and I was loath to step out. But atta there is always plenty of. I have never used bread flour; I doubt if it is even available here. So, I thought it would be cool to try the recipe with refined flour as well as with regular atta and compare.

I followed the recipe to the t (my usual bread recipe uses half the fat), including the dough folding instructions. I should have taken pictures during the rising, but I did not. The results are here to see.

I had a beautiful, soft white bread and the other was the very nutty, wholesome tasting, whole wheat loaf – half the size! So, it had been proved, beyond doubt, that I was up-to the mark with my baking. Even my son noted that there was actually a ‘taste’ to the white bread too, making the effort well worth it.