Friday, April 8, 2011

Baking Experiment - Different Flours in same Banana Bread

Now that I have a new and wonderfully clean bag of soft white wheat berries, it's time to experiment with soft wheat flour again.   It gave me a great reason to stop sitting at the desk, awaiting phone calls and emails that weren't coming in anyway.                                                                                                                                   
We had several very ripe bananas, so decided to start with banana bread.                                                    
I made 3 batches using identical ingredients, except for the type of flour.                                                    
I heated the oven and gathered my tools and ingredients...                                                                                   
The Motivators
3 flours, from left:  All-purpose (unbleached),
Hard white wheat (what I use for yeast bread), and Soft white wheat (pastry)


3 identical, ugly, old pans.
Sprayed with
Pam, of course




3 equally weighted amounts of mashed banana.
I thought just going by number of bananas per batch
could be too variable and affect results


I used a fairly simple Banana Bread recipe from America's Test Kitchen's Family Baking Book.  The batters were very similar.  If anything, the batch using all-purpose flour seemed the least fluid, which is opposite of what I would have guessed.                                                                                                    
I marked each, so I'd know which was which.
Again, left to right, all-purpose, hard white, & soft white

So far, so good... The whole wheat loaves are flatter,
but maybe the toothpicks on top weren't a good idea?
Stay tuned for the taste and texture results... I suspect I won't have any trouble finding critics glad to taste and share their opinions.

Comments (5)

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laxsupermom's avatar

laxsupermom · 731 weeks ago

I love your scientific approach to all things baking. I can see how this can translate to kids who ask the important how & why science questions. I think it's interesting how the a.p. rose the most. Can't wait to see the texture results. Thanks for sharing.
I don't remember any of them asking 'how' or 'why'...just when. As in "When do we get to eat this?" ;-D
Whole wheat will be flatter since it has less gluten. Structure of the batter is different. Will be interesting, as LAX says, to see texture results. Hope you'll show slices of each.

Used to love doing these types of tests. Sadly, patience has not increased with age in my case. LOL. Jane
My recent post Maple Furniture Kitchen
What a yummy-looking scientific experiment! My kids are lucky nowadays to get one loaf of freshly baked banana bread, much less three different loaves. Must get my baking mojo back. Can't wait to see the texture results.
My recent post Sautéed swiss chard with parmesan and lemon
I hope I got the pics you wanted to see, Jane, because it's too late now!

Doesn't take too long to eat 3 loaves here. One loaf would cause a riot. I see I need to visit Beantown and see what became of the Swiss Chard!

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