Thursday, September 9, 2010

Undisputed Victory

If you ever read my recipes, you know I generally use equal parts white whole wheat flour (or WWWF, as it's known on my grocery lists) and oat flour to make a whole-grain base that acts just like all-purpose flour. [Regular {red} whole wheat flour and whole wheat pastry flour comes close, but it's a little gritty.]
Back in Texas, the only brand of WWWF available was King Arthur and they make a great product, but it ain't cheap and I use a lot of it.  Several months back, our Trader Joe's started carrying a store brand WWWF at roughly half the price and I was, well, probably more excited than I should have been about that five pound bundle of joy. 
After months of testing, I'm sticking with KA for my WWWF.  As you can [sort of] see in the picture, the TJ flour [right] isn't ground as finely and the baked results have been closer in texture to a red whole wheat base.  It's fine in breads and quick breads when I want a hearty wheat flavor, but in cookies and cakes where the wheat is mostly for structure, it doesn't play nearly as well with others as King Arthur. 
And now that I'm committed, I figured I can save money by buying it in larger quantities once I find a spare corner in my tiny kitchen for a 40lb sack...

2 comments:

  1. I'm glad you posted this. I bought the TJ's WWWF and was wondering what was going on. All the cakes I've tried it in have been stodgy and unexciting. I'll look for KA instead.

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  2. The bigger chaff in TJ's really is noticeable in the more delicate baked goods. I don't do a lot of cakes, but I made a few batches of cookies that were borderline unacceptable.

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