Am looking for a recipe for Soda Bread and I would prefer to use Whole
Wheat flour, so I dont know if that changes the measurments of the
igredients or not.

Am I right in assuming you use Soda instead of yeast ?

Any info you can provide will be most appeciated. Feel free to e-mail me
directly if you wish.

Chris Mc 3

Thanks or all the great recipe's that have been e-mailed to me :-)

Question # 1 :

I am not really on a 'No Carb' diet (Atkins-Zone etc) but I am trying to
cut back drastically on my 'Processed, Bleached' flours.

If I want to cook somthing that is 'Whole Wheat', why must I use White
(regular) flour, or DO I ? Can I use ALL whole wheat ?

Question # 2 :

I dont even have a full size oven at my current place, just a Toaster
Oven, but so far its been no problem for anything I have wanted to cook.

Should I cut the ingredients by 1 / 2 or just make 2 batches ? I guess
my main question would be if the ingredients will be okay just sitting
there for 45 minutes - 1 hour while the other 1 / 2 is cooking or will
it turn 'Yucky' (un-usable) ?

Question # 3 :

Besides Soda Bread, what I am interested in most is 'Quick' (and
Healthy) cooking braeds...I.E. 100 % Whole Wheat Flat-Breads, Muffins
etc. Any other suggestions ?

In short...Even after a big, thick, juicy steak and veggies, I just do
NOT feel complete unless I have a tasty slice of bread, and I would like
to do t as healthy as possible. From what I understand,
100 % whole wheat would qualify as your 'Good Carbs'. (?)

Thanks again.

Chris Mc 3

Oh...One more thing...(sorry)...Can I cook it up seperate like 'Muffins'
or must I do it all together in the traditional 'Loaf' style ?

Thanks in advance.

Chris Mc 3

at Fri, 24 Oct 2003 19:27:53 GMT in 7036-3F997D39-73@storefull-
2378.public.lawson.webtv.net, (Chris Mc 3) wrote :


Thanks or all the great recipe's that have been e-mailed to me :-)

Question # 1 :

I am not really on a 'No Carb' diet (Atkins-Zone etc) but I am trying to
cut back drastically on my 'Processed, Bleached' flours.

If I want to cook somthing that is 'Whole Wheat', why must I use White
(regular) flour, or DO I ? Can I use ALL whole wheat ?

It's not necessary to use white flour, not for soda bread, not for most
kinds of bread. Cakes are very different, and I wouldn't recommend assuming
that you can substitute there, but you can use whole wheat in most other
recipes. Usually you need to increase the amount of liquid with whole
wheat, because it will absorb considerably more. Typically I add about 6/5
the liquid amount specified for a recipe calling for white flour.

For soda bread, if you're using whole wheat, you'll get much better results
if you use whole wheat pastry flour, instead of all-purpose whole wheat or
bread flour. In fact, this is true of most of the "quick breads" - i.e.
those that don't use yeast - if you use one of the high-protein flours, the
result with quick breads is likely to be a lead brick.


Question # 2 :

I dont even have a full size oven at my current place, just a Toaster
Oven...

Congratulations! A far better and more versatile choice than the microwave
oven which so many people seem to have, faced with a no-range situation.
I'm sure you're discovering the extraordinary utility of the toaster oven
every day.


Should I cut the ingredients by 1 / 2 or just make 2 batches ? I guess
my main question would be if the ingredients will be okay just sitting
there for 45 minutes - 1 hour while the other 1 / 2 is cooking or will
it turn 'Yucky' (un-usable) ?

With soda bread, the answer is *definitely* cut the ingredients in half.
Letting things sit around for considerable time with soda bread is a
disaster, because the soda reaction will be completely spent by the time it
gets into the oven, which means no rise, and a leaden lump. With breads, it
works like this. Things that use yeast will be fine divided into 2 batches
- the extra time spent sitting around will do almost no harm. Things that
use baking powder will be OK to divide if the baking powder is double-
acting, useless if it's single-acting. Things that use baking soda only
must be cut in half if the recipe yields too much. One exception is dense
cookies, which usually still come out OK even if they only had baking soda.

Also, things that use large amounts of butter will usually improve if you
stick the second batch in the refrigerator - in fact, that second batch may
turn out better than the first! Usually butter-heavy recipes rely on the
properties of melting butter during the baking process, so that time spent
in the fridge helps to resolidify the butter and make it that much better.

Baked goods that require beaten egg whites will usually deteriorate after
an hour spent sitting around before baking. Sometimes the deterioration
isn't critical, but with things for which maximum volume is essential, such
as angel food cake or souffle, you can't let them sit. You can stabilize
egg whites for noncritical stuff by adding a small amount of cream of
tartar.

....

inserted text from another post
Oh...One more thing...(sorry)...Can I cook it up seperate like 'Muffins'
or must I do it all together in the traditional 'Loaf' style ?
insertion ends here

With soda bread, you can do it in 2 traditional ways. The first is "cake",
which is baked as one big "loaf" - a round hemisphere slashed with a cross
on top. The second is "farl" which you don't bake per se, you "fry" To make
farl, instead of shaping the dough into a hemisphere, you roll it out into
a thick (1" or so) circle. Then you cut up the circle into individual
wedges. Then you heat a heavy cast-iron skillet until it is very hot,
without any oil in it, and then set the wedges - "farls" in the skillet.
You cook them long enough to get reasonably brown on the bottom, flip,
brown again, and serve. Doing farl is a great option if you want individual
portions rather than a big loaf.

Most other quick breads you can do like muffins with minimal difficulty.
You'll need to cut back on the baking time dramatically, because of the
smaller size.


In short...Even after a big, thick, juicy steak and veggies, I just do
NOT feel complete unless I have a tasty slice of bread, and I would like
to do t as healthy as possible.

I sense that you feel bread and/or carbs in general lean towards the
"unhealthy". Is there any specific reason you believe this? There's nothing
wrong with eating some carbs, no matter what Dr. Atkins might have said. In
fact, given that you don't feel satisfied without them, I suspect your
metabolism may be geared towards carbs anyway, i.e. that it may be
*unhealthy* for you to avoid them. Note this is not a professional medical
opinion in any way.

From what I understand,
100 % whole wheat would qualify as your 'Good Carbs'. (?)

IMHO definitions of "good" and "bad" entirely miss the point of good
nutrition. The way I look at it, there are 4 main points of "healthy
eating":

1) Everything in moderation;
2) Listen to what your body tells you;
3) Get enough of the basic nutrients;
4) Avoid anything artificial.

#'s 1 and 2 are where a lot of people fall down. For instance, it's common
to vilify saturated fat. Well, look at principle #1. Yes, eating a stick of
butter a day probably carries significant risks. No, having a couple of
tablespoons of it probably isn't going to kill you. In contrast, eating an
extra serving a day of broccoli is probably a good idea. Giving up bread
altogether in order to have more broccoli is probably a bad one.

Now look at #2. How do you *feel* after a large steak? Heavy, lethargic,
and sleepy? Or energized, powerful, alert? If the first, then you might
consider cutting back on the meat. If the second, adding more meat to the
diet could well be wise. Are there vegetables you dislike the taste of,
give you gas, and don't really make you feel any better? Probably indicates
you should stay away from those vegetables.

I hate to condense nutrition down to such a simplified, "sound bite"
description, however. I recommend you get Dr. Elson Haas' authoritative
reference, "Staying Healthy With Nutrition" - an exhaustive book on
nutrition, written by an expert, with thankfully only moderate bias, and
very gratifyingly free of the sound bite/magic-bullet viewpoints on
nutrition that you find in so many books today.




--
Alex Rast

(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)

Thanks for all the response, especially those who took time to e-mail me
personally, I do appreciate it.

Havnt had time to experiment with any of the recipes yet, but planning
on it tomorrow. Wish me luck,

Chris Mc 3

PS : If any one can help me out with this question...Why do all (most ?)
of the recipes for 'Whole Wheat' bread call for at least some regular
(or All Purpose) flour...I.E...3 cups whole wheat, 1 cup all purpose
flour...?

Some one wrote and said no, you dont absolutely have to, just substitute
the 1 cup regular (or All Purpose) flour for whole wheat, but it may not
turn out as good.

I guess understanding why the recipe calls for 'White' flour in a 'Whole
Wheat' recipe in the first place might better help me decide whether to
leave it in or out. (?)

(Chris Mc 3) wrote:

PS : If any one can help me out with this question...Why do all (most ?)
of the recipes for 'Whole Wheat' bread call for at least some regular
(or All Purpose) flour...I.E...3 cups whole wheat, 1 cup all purpose
flour...?

Whole wheat flour is 'heavier' than white flour, and it rises slower.
If you were making yeast bread, you could use all whole wheat flour,
but a soda bread needs to rise faster than a yeast bread.

You could try making a loaf of soda bread using just whole wheat
flour, but it will be even denser than the standard (3C whole wheat,
1C white) soda bread.

jenn
--
Jenn Ridley