What's the difference?

angieskia

One Recipe Calls for "All Purpose" Flour & another calls for "Whole-Wheat" Flour. What is the difference. Can I use Whole Wheat In place of All Purpose or do they turn out different textures/effect after cooked? Should I stick to Whole Wheat or is it ok to use All Purpose?
Sorry I'm just starting out with REALLY trying to cook. One of the reasons I'm only srting out is I don't like to be confused so I'll prob be asking quite a few questions down the road. Sorry if you all get sick of hearing my questions. I Do WANT to cook but I need Confidence.

H_82

I guess it depends on what you're making. If it's baked goods (cookies, etc), I stick to the all purpose (white) flour... only b/c I've never tried whole wheat.
Cooking though, I use whole wheat whenever I can in place of all purpose.

heathersmilez

I use whole wheat in EVERYTHING (that being said I use flour maybe 1-2x a month.) A lot of healthy recipes often call for ½ ww and ½ all purpose only b/c picky eaters say they can taste when its ww flour so you split the difference between healthy and tastier. I can't taste the difference so I stick with the one that has more nutritional value.

lorifrost1

All purpose flour is the more standard flour. It's what you think of when you hear the word flour so don't let "all purpose" throw you off. You mostly use whole wheat when baking breads. You can substitute, but whole wheat has a harder texture and different taste. A lot of people will use whole wheat flour when baking breads but it's more common to do half white, half whole wheat.

I'm excited for you to start baking/cooking more! If you need any help feel free to email me or add me as a friend. I love cooking and baking-- but I stick to simple ingredients. It's a lot of fun and healthier for my family, too! Good luck!

Kristin77

The only time I don't use whole wheat is when making pastry or short bread and sugar cookies. The whole wheat is too heavy for those things.

rmkorama

Okay, whole wheat will give a different flavor and texture. Depending on what you're cooking, WW will likely not rise as much as AP and will be more dense. AP flour is basically flour with the germ taken out of it, so it has a longer shelf life. Other things you can try, if you're interested in the greater nutritional value of WW but want it to look more, um, white, is to use white whole wheat. It won't be white, but will look and taste lighter than using 100% whole wheat. Also, you can try whole wheat pastry flour if you want to bake something with a fluffier texture. Basically, it's a difference in the type of wheat. White whole wheat is a white/spring wheat berry. What we usually consider "whole wheat" in the US is typically milled from a red wheat berry. Yes, I could go on and on and would be happy to answer any other questions about baking with whole grains, but basically, the safest thing when starting out is to go 1/2 and 1/2 and then just experiment until you get the results you want.

H_82

All purpose flour is the more standard flour. It's what you think of when you hear the word flour so don't let "all purpose" throw you off. You mostly use whole wheat when baking breads. You can substitute, but whole wheat has a harder texture and different taste. A lot of people will use whole wheat flour when baking breads but it's more common to do half white, half whole wheat.

I'm excited for you to start baking/cooking more! If you need any help feel free to email me or add me as a friend. I love cooking and baking-- but I stick to simple ingredients. It's a lot of fun and healthier for my family, too! Good luck!

Me too! (the love to cook & bake part)

angieskia

ok so I read in a footnote to one of the recipes that there is "White Whole-Wheat" Flour. It is supposed to be fairly close to white flour in texture. So here's My problem. I have NO FLOUR in my house at the moment. I want to get storage Containers for whatever flour I plan to buy. So Should I get All 3? Should I definitely Stick with Purchasing All Purpose and Put a Maybe on the Whole Wheat? I'm not sure how often I'll actualy be using these but I Do NOT want to leave an Open Bag or 2 in My Cabinet

angieskia

Sorry should have mentioned this at 1st. I'm not quite ready to bake yet. I'm interested in the flour for Main Dishes & Side dishes. I re-read the recipe for Popovers and it asked for Both in the Same recipe. I would consider that a side dish maybe?? I plan to go to walmart today and want to know how many & what size containers to get.
I plan to purchase the flour later today. I also want to try out Brown Rice and Wild Rice. That will be a second topic

rmkorama

Buy some AP flour, I would say. That's going to be your basic, garden-variety all-around most useful. As noted already, it's been de-germed to give it a long shelf life, though that also means it has relatively low nutritional value. Anyway, you can keep it around in a plastic container for a fairly long while without any problems, or you can put it in the freezer. You should put a "maybe" on the whole wheat flour, and think about what you plan to do with it before buying. Depends on what sort of investment a $4 bag of flour is to your budget. White whole wheat is just milled a different variety of wheat, as noted, but will have much the same texture as "regular" whole wheat--rougher, heavier, and stronger flavor than AP flour. However, it's been gaining popularity recently because it has a milder flavor than the standard whole wheat milled from red berries.

Popovers... I'm afraid I've never made them successfully, so I can't offer too much on the topic. I have a recipe for them that involves whole wheat pastry flour (which is again, simply milled from a different variety of wheat). I'm not sure if my lack of success for the one time I made them was because I'd never done them before or a problem with the recipe. Haven't tried them since, more for lack of time to bake a lot than anything else.

angieskia

awesome. Thank RM. I'll buy 1 container for just the AP flour. I'll go through the recipes 1st and prob next paycheck I'll look into getting the White WW

rmkorama

Just to make sure I actually answered your question: yes. The different wheat flours can be substituted at a ration of 1 to 1 pretty much all around. It's just that different types will give different results.


Substituting other grains such as rye or barley opens up a whole different bucket of questions, though, so let's not go there just yet.

angieskia

Thanx RM. When I'm ready I believe I want to substitue White Whole Wheat flour for All Purpose. I want to get used to actually cooking with the AP 1st so It won't hurt to wait a while. Thank you all Again so much for taking time to help me out!!