How to Substitute Whole Wheat Pastry Flour for White Flour in Baking

Whole wheat pastry flour can be used in place of white flour in many of your baked goods. Whole wheat pastry flour is a fine-textured whole-grain flour that is milled from soft white wheat. It is much different from whole wheat flour, which usually makes baked goods hard and dense. In contrast, whole wheat pastry flour has a texture and protein count similar to white flour, making it an easy and nutritious substitution. Find whole wheat pastry flour at your local health food store or grocery, or order online (see links below).

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Choose a recipe for a light-textured item - such as cookies, muffins, scones, quick breads, pancakes, waffles, or biscuits - to try with whole wheat pastry flour. Whole wheat pastry flour is relatively low in gluten and protein, so is not suitable for use in yeast-bread recipes.

2. Make the recipe substituting whole wheat pastry flour for half of the white flour called for.

3. Take a taste test - can you even notice a difference? If you like the results you can try using a larger percentage of whole wheat pastry flour next time to add more whole grains to the recipe. If you think too much whole wheat pastry flour was used, try substituting for 1/3 the white flour next time.

4. Many recipes can be made entirely with whole wheat pastry flour with great results. Continue experimenting with recipes, knowing that your substitutions will be adding more heart-healthy whole grains to your diet!

Resources

• Purcell Mountain Farms whole wheat pastry flour
• Bob's Red Mill whole wheat pastry flour

[CandisLynn]

on 10/22/2008 Hi Lindsay! Thanks for sharing your knowledge about this. I honestly never knew there was a difference between regular whole wheat flour and pastry whole wheat flour. Awesome, 5 stars :)