A Gentler Whole Wheat

Carolyn Malcoun

Mild flavor meets high fiber in this white flour

Bakers will find a new contender in the supermarket baking aisle: white whole-wheat flour. Milled from a hard white winter wheat berry, rather than the hard red spring wheat berry of traditional whole-wheat flours, this white cousin claims the same healthful nutritional profile without the bitter taste of the tannins. Among the benefits of whole-wheat flours, a direct result of milling both the germ and bran of the wheat berry, are folate, thiamin, magnesium, vitamins B6 and E, and disease-fighting phytochemicals, as well as five times the dietary fiber of all-purpose flour.

In the EatingWell Test Kitchen, we pitted white whole-wheat flour against traditional whole-wheat in recipes for muffins, a quick bread and a yeast bread. Some tasters thought the milder white whole-wheat allowed other flavors in the recipes to shine. Others found that it lent a slightly moister texture and spring to the muffins and quick bread. Some preferred the heartier flavor of the traditional whole-wheat. And several people genuinely could not detect a big difference. In the end, we decided, it comes down to personal taste.