Cooking Qs

unaveragejane · January 2015

I'm going to try my hand at making a homemade version of Nutrigrain bars b/c N is kind of obsessed with them. The recipe I found calls for whole wheat pastry flour. What is special about pastry flour? I already have whole wheat flour. Would that work?

Also, N's favorite flavor is apple cinnamon rather than strawberry. How can I sub out apples for the strawberries without making a huge mess?

Here's the recipe: https://www.superhealthykids.com/homemade-cereal-bars/

Brandiewine11 · January 2015

Pastry flour has a lower protein level than regular flour. It makes things softer and flakier. All purpose flour would have a higher protein content than pastry flour. There are some substitutions you can try if you don't have the pastry flour.

Pastryflour is similar to cake flour, although it has not been chlorinated, with an 8-10% protein content and is made from soft wheat flour. It is soft and ivory in color. Can find it in health food stores or through mail order catalogs. To make two cups of pastry flour, combine 1 1/3 cups (185 grams) all-purpose flour with 2/3 cup (90 grams) cake flour. Good for making pastry, pies and cookies.

Read more:https://www.joyofbaking.com/flour.html#ixzz3Ocn7YIph

I don't see any reason you can't use apples instead of strawberries. Go for it!

TJ1979 · January 2015

So if cake flour is similar to pastry flour, you can make cake flour like this:

Measure out 1 cup of all-purpose flour. Remove 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour and place it back in your flour canister. Replace the removed all-purpose flour with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch. Sift flour 5 times.

TJ1979 · January 2015

And for the apple filling, I would cook the apple with some cinnamon and make your own little cinnamon applesauce. Shouldn't be too much trouble.

Brandiewine11 · January 2015

Mapleme said:

Just to be clear, TJ and Brandie are referencing white pastry flour, not whole wheat, although TJ's suggestion with the corn starch might work in this case. Although ww pastry flour tends to be milled finer than regular ww flour.

Oops! Totally missed the whole wheat part!

TJ1979 · January 2015

I knew she was talking about whole wheat, but I figured it would work the same to lighten it a bit.

unaveragejane · January 2015

I'm so not sifting that much flour 5 times. Haha! I got one of those squeeze-handle sifters when we got married, and I hate it with a passion. I need to research and find a better one.

nanabanana06 · January 2015

You can also get a white whole wheat flour. It's mostly a texture thing. Regular whole wheat tends to be coarser milled and denser when baked. We have whole wheat pastry flour that I got from our local fancy grocery store, but our regular grocery store carries a white whole wheat flour that has a similar texture to all purpose, but is still whole wheat since it's made out of an albino wheat berry. It's nifty stuff.

TJ1979 · January 2015

unaveragejane said:

I'm so not sifting that much flour 5 times. Haha! I got one of those squeeze-handle sifters when we got married, and I hate it with a passion. I need to research and find a better one.

Oh yeah, those are the worst. No, the shaking ones are the worst, but the squeeze handle isn't far behind. This is the one I have, and I lurve it!

https://www.amazon.com/Wilton-489757-Flour-Sifter-/dp/B00A9ZMY4G/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1421091791&sr=8-4&keywords=wilton+sifter

unaveragejane · January 2015

@mapleme - I am not the world's neatest person, but I was about to have an anxiety attack at how haphazardly your pots and pans are stacked until I realized the picture is sideways. Whew!

TJ1979 · January 2015

And OMG, I never thought of threading the pot lid through the pot handle! Brilliant!

unaveragejane · January 2015

Alright, so I'm going to take a run at this with my King Arthur White Whole Wheat flour and corn starch.

I can't remember if I still have Agave nectar. I can sub honey for it though, right?

TJ1979 · January 2015

I would say yes Jane. Or maple syrup.

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