Open letter to a guru.

Jan 18, 2011

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Dear Mark Bittman,

You are an awesome chef. I love your videos, I like your low-meat philosophy that admits for a big juicy cheeseburger whenever one is in the mood, and I have at least five cookbooks by you, all of them well-used.

But you have got to get over this notion that everything baked/pastry/griddled/breadlike MUST include some white flour.

I had hope when I saw the video this morning encouraging people to eat whole-grain pancakes. Perhaps finally you had seen the light. There you were, with cooked oats and soaked cornmeal and bulgur and some whole wheat flour, plus nuts and dried fruit and cardamom, showing people how to put together a tasty whole-grain pancake. And yet, there you were tossing some white flour into the mix yet again.

Mr. Bittman. It's not necessary. These are pancakes, for crying out loud. They need no gluten development. You can go 100% . Don't fear it.

And don't get me started on your muffin recipes, by the way. How to Cook Everything has a basic muffin recipe plus lists totaling at least twenty or twenty-five variations. And the best you can do is, in one variation, suggest "Replace up to one cup of all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour"? One of the two cups? You couldn't go crazy and suggest "You know, you might if you like make the muffins with all whole wheat flour?" Did you think they would explode if you used too much?

Look, I can understand if you simply prefer the texture of white flour. But especially with your new healthy-food focus, it's simply unconscionable that you don't admit that the stuff isn't necessary. Certainly not in pancakes, waffles, brownies, quick breads — even in many kinds of cookies — the extra tenderness of whole grain flours is maybe even preferable.

Some really nutty people even bake yeast bread with the stuff. I know it's crazy but you might try it some time.

Sincerely,

Bearing Blog

Comments

12 responses to “Open letter to a guru.”

mary

January 18, 2011

I have personally struggled with the Bittman muffin recipe. It could just be the whole wheat flour I’m using or the flour could be old, but every time I substitute for all the flour, the muffins are just not good. They are better when I use only half and I can say that we ate at least half whole grain. What kind of flour do you use?

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bibliotecaria

January 18, 2011

To add on to the end: “After all, people used to cook everything with whole wheat flour because white flour didn’t exist.”
Mary — are you using whole wheat pastry flour? It does make a difference, I find.

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bearing

January 18, 2011

I use Dakota Maid brand whole wheat flour. I definitely notice a difference with some brands of whole wheat flour. For instance, I *****HATE***** to bake with Bob’s Red Mill brand because it is so coarse. A finer ground flour made from hard red winter wheat works better. I swear by Dakota Maid, but if I couldn’t get it I would use pastry flour and add gluten to make up for the low protein (unless it was supposed to be soft, like in pancakes).

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mary

January 18, 2011

I will have to try pastry flour.

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bearing

January 19, 2011

I should add that stuff made with whole wheat definitely tastes different from stuff made with white flour, and so I can understand it if people prefer not to use 100% whole wheat. I never make 100% whole grain pizza dough, for instance, just because I like it better with 50% bread flour; and if I make sandwich bread for a bunch of kids who aren’t mine, I often go down to 50% just to be safe. But I just don’t understand why, in a cookbook that offers dozens of variations-on-a-theme, there isn’t even a suggestion that you could make a completely whole-grain baked good — even in those baked goods where nobody could tell the difference (hello?!? brownies?!?!)

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Robin

January 19, 2011

I admit to being shy of adding too much ww flour to my recipes. I’ve been using white whole wheat flour from King Arthur. It give a milder ww flavor. But then, I’m feeding a crowd that likes anything from Hostess over my homemade things. This is a problem “from the top” (ahem) in my house, so I’m looking for more ways to be sneaky about whole grains. I made a muffin recipe from Simple Bites the other day, with soaked oats in it, and it was declared, “not like the ones in the store”. “You mean the ones that are glorified cupcakes?” I asked.

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bearing

January 19, 2011

LOL at “from the top (ahem).”
Everybody has their health-food line they won’t cross, I guess. I tend to be a little bit obsessive about white flour. My mother drew the line at mac ‘n’ cheese from a box; mine’s a little farther back!
Pancakes and waffles strike me as a good place to start getting used to whole grain because they’re generally soaked in syrup anyway. With muffins and breads, I think one thing that may help make it more acceptable is to increase the sugar in the recipe while you increase the whole wheat. Whole wheat does have a slight bitterness to it that might be offset by more sugar. It’s a tradeoff, but I think the benefits of whole grain are maybe better than the harm of a couple extra teaspoons of sugar, especially if you can train the family to accept whole wheat stuff in general.
IOW, try making muffins that are as Sweet as the store bought ones (to start with anyway) but not made with all white flour.

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bearing

January 19, 2011

(oh, when I said “a couple of extra teaspoons of sugar” I meant per person per day, not per recipe. I’m talking about doubling or tripling the sugar in your muffin recipe — depending on how much sugar you already use — so that the muffins are noticeably sweeter. So, half a cup of sugar or more in a dozen muffins.)

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mary

January 19, 2011

I think in the past that it was more of a textural problem than a taste problem. The muffins were just too dense, even when I thought I used a generous amount of baking powder.

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Christy Porucznik

January 24, 2011

Nearly fell off my chair about the half a cup of sugar in a dozen muffins. In nearly every baked good, I use only 2/3 of the suggested sugar to no ill effect. My whole-wheat sourdough muffins, for example, 3T maple syrup for 2 dozen smallish muffins. The dried fruit adds more sweetness if used.
Guess we have trained our tastebuds!

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Christy Porucznik

January 24, 2011

Did you actually send this to him?

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bearing

January 24, 2011

No, I didn’t send it to him personally, it’s just “open.”
I agree with you that most baked good recipes suggest more sugar than necessary. I am merely suggesting that if children or spouses dislike the flavor of whole grain baked goods, perhaps extra sugar could help.
I add about 1/4 cup sugar per dozen muffins typically, more if the muffins contain blueberries or fresh cranberries because they seem more balanced that way. I could eat them with less, but that’s about how the troops like them around here.

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