King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking: Delicious Recipes Using Nutritious Whole Grains

This book has such great recipes and provides a lot of background on how to use certain ingredients! I absolutely loved their sour cream muffin recipe - definitely will be making it again (and again).

This is a very comprehensive cookbook for when you want to bake healthier baked goods using whole grains.

Well, love this book. The information is very helpful for anyone who would like their treats to be healthier. There are so many new interesting ideas that I want to try. I might add, that I have been baking for over forty years. There is no down side, unless you think that them wanting you to use their products is a down side. But, it is your kitchen and you are in charge...

I have owned this book two months, and I've made a slew of recipes from this book, all of them delicious!! In fact, I have a hot "Oat and Currant Scone," (I used the alternate raisins in place of currants) fresh from the oven, sitting by my elbow as I type. Absolutely delicious, every bit as good as something that would cost $2-$3 a wedge at a local bakery. And this recipe has given me 12 scone wedges. This book is a treasure trove of recipes and baking advice. For instance -- I did not not know that the proper way to measure whole grain flour is to stir the flour first with a spoon, then fill your measuring cup by spoonfuls, shaken gently, so that the flour is light and your results aren't heavy. This is easy enough to do, and also fun! The sections are: p.1 Breakfasts (pancakes, waffles, crepes, granola) p.31 Quick Breads, Muffins, Coffeecakes, Biscuits & Scones p.99 Crisps, Cobblers & Puddings p.127 Flatbreads & Crackers p.171 Yeast Breads (all use instant yeast, not regular active) p.271 Sourdough p.303 Cookies & Bars p.367 Cakes p.439 Pie & Quiche p.499 Pastry p.537 The Whole Grains (history of grains with extra recipes) p.583 Appendices (Cooking whole grains, ingredient weights, where to buy) p.589 Glossary p.599 Index I've made from this book: Double Fudge Brownies, Spelt Pancakes (delicious!), Blueberry-Corn pancakes, Oat & Currant (raisin) Scones, Morning Glory Muffins, Corn and Oat Muffins, Apple-Walnut Coffecake (for Christmas morning for my coworkers at the hospital where I work, they all loved it! not a crumb left), Honey-Whole Wheat Biscuits, Chewy-Oatmeal cookies (I loved these best with dates as the dried fruit choice), Thin & Crisp Wheat Cookies, Cranberry-Cornmeal Cake (which my family adores with vanilla ice cream and has been dubbed "Pilgrim Cake"), as well as several others. Yes, the book does use several different types of whole grains and whole grain flour, but isn't that the point? The main types of flours and grains are repeated frequently in the recipes. Whole Wheat flour can be found anywhere. Whole Wheat Pastry flour can be found in health food stores. The White Whole Wheat is available more and more in regular grocery stores, if you watch for it, as is oat flour. Cornmeal and Oatmeal can be found anywhere, as can Bread Flour, which is used in smaller portions in several recipes. Spelt flour, used in pancakes and other recipes, in an "ancient grain" that is an ancestor of our modern wheat, but it is lighter and sweeter than wheat and just delicious. I had never heard of it before. It has been fun to try new things. The folks at King Arthur Flour have sure outdone themselves with this book! I would have wasted tons of ingredients experimenting with other recipes, and not come up with recipes half as good. The recipes also use pure ingredients, such as real butter, real buttermilk, real fruit, etc, and the finished baked product reflects the quality ingredients that go into the baking. I h

After becoming vegetarian in 2003, I became much more conscious about adding whole grains to my diet, to the point of replacing white flour with whole grains whenever possible. In the past, baked goods with whole wheat and other grains were easily detectable as "health food." However, the talented kitchen staff at King Arthur has found ways to tone down whole wheat that pass as full-flavored, healthier counterparts of traditional favorites such as scones, pie crust, croissants, and other delectable goodies. The book begins, appropriately enough, with breakfast (porridges, oatmeal, granolas, waffles, pancakes, French toast, muffins and scones). After a hearty foundation, quick breads, muffins, coffeecakes, biscuits and scones are explored, followed by crisps, cobblers and puddings, flatbreads and crackers, yeast breads, sourdough, cookies and bars, cakes, pie and quiche, pastry, and a guide to whole grains. This is my first King Arthur cookbook, and I appreciate the fact that when they discuss kinds of flour to buy, they do not endlessly promote their own brand as the only choice (in fact, there are precious few mentions of King Arthur flours). If I had to choose one baking book to have in my collection, it would be this one. The clear instructions and healthier updates of many classics are crowd-pleasers, and the cookbook itself is beautiful to look at. This is the perfect gift for your favorite (health-conscious) baker.

I like to eat healthy and I love to bake! Until now, the two did not often go well together. I would substitute some flour for whole wheat, try fat alternatives, etc... with mixed results. No more! The first two nights I had this book I read it like a novel. There is so much good information and I wanted to see everything in it. I have since made 3 recipes: the easy whole-wheat bread, oatmeal cookies and peanut butter cookies and all came out great. I even substituted organic cane sugar for standard white sugar in the cookies (though I wouldn't risk that with breads) and they were fabulous. This is not necessarily a low-fat or diet baking book - they even tell you that. However, most of their recipes end up being lower calorie and higher fiber (meaning healthier) than their traditional counterparts. If you want a great treat healthy enough to eat every day, you'll find it here. If you want a breakfast or desert showstopper, you'll find it here too. No matter what you make, you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that it is better than eating the same thing made with standard white flour. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes to bake and wants to incorporate more whole grains into their diet.

Many of us are familiar with King Arthur flours and baking advice and some even their previous two award winning cookbooks. What we didn't have from them until now was a baking cookbook using whole grains. Many of us have laid off the baking goodies for health reasons, avoiding processed white flour and sugars, etc. Now with this tome we have what we need to get back baking! Brownies, biscotti, cakes, pies, crackers, scones,breads, etc. There is what easily appears to be over 500 recipes on using whole grains in this things and many have advice on low fat alternatives. Helpful on each recipe is a complete nutritional breakdown. The sidebars are extremely helpful, e.g. "What's a Pinch?" specifically here of instant yeast. The line drawings are truly appreciated by those of us who dip in and out of the baking arena, so all this advice and user friendly aids in this cookbook are valued. There are around seven pages of color photos. There is even advice on how to substitute whole grains for processed white flour, but with the caveat that likely after you've tried these recipes, you'll just seek this collection out for your baking needs. And it is extensive. So far I've sampled the Fresh Berry Tiramisu; Apple Brown Betty and several others with outstanding results. There is something here for everyone from crackers to sourdough, from cream puffs to cookies to croissants. It's a large volume which will require shelf space, but worth the investment for those who wish to still bake the goodies but desire the healthful benefits that whole grains provide. Sources are listed, with King Arthur of course being the logical start with their extensive catalogue, however they do even provide internet suggests to find all kinds of other sources as well. This is truly that genre of cookbook which isn't to be exhausted with recipe trying any too soon. That would require lots of baking regularly, but when one gets the hankering for those scrumptuous baked goods, this is the one that can deliver delicisous, conistent and healthly results.

I couldn't wait to try a few recipes. I have the rest of the King Arthur Flour books and this one is the same style. Every recipe & procedure seems to be well tested. It explains the process of baking with whole grains and why to do certain things; i.e. how to deal with the problem of the "bitterness" of whole grains, also, how to deal with the "hardness" of the bran; etc. They list all items in the recipes in weights which helps me because I like to grind my own grains into flour. Many of the recipes call for a mixture of whole grain flour to all-purpose or bread flour. What was a surprise for us was to try a 100% whole wheat pie crust. Their techniques worked and we all (kids included) loved the taste and texture of the pie crust. It is not the same as the flaky "white-flour" pie crust but not hard and chewy like other recipes I had tried. I like the idea of mixing the whole-grain flours and white flours because we have tried to be consistent in baking with 100% whole grain flours and we just don't keep doing it. We eventually switch back to the white flour because we tire of the "toughness" of whole grain foods. But because I have not wanted to abandon the effort to eat more whole grains I bought this book. I do not regret it. I would buy it again. There is much more than just breads, pies, & cakes; there are puddings, breakfasts, quiche, whole wheat genoise (that is really good) and even pastries! I appreciate the nutrition information for each recipe and also the many side-bar helps, hints and extra recipes (like syrups). There are not too many real life pictures but that is the same for the rest of the King Arthur books. The illustrations seem very adequate to me. My 10 year old seems to be able to follow them with no problem. We are not whole grain "purists" but we do like the balance presented in this book. My husband, who does not bake much, is overwhelmed by the presentation of the recipes. He says there are too many words to follow. These are not the simple 3 ingredient recipes with few instructions. These are recipes with lots of information. I could see how it could be overwhelming to someone who is not used to following recipes presented this way. I think it would be worth the effort to overcome that so one could add whole grains to their diet in a very tasty way. There is much to learn that would improve one's baking and cooking abilities. The King Arthur Flour books are what I use to teach my girls to bake. We have tried other whole-grain baking cookbooks, like Sue Gregg's, Beatrice Trum Hunter's, Marleeta Basey's & others' whole grain books; all pretty good. Even though, I keep going back to King Arthur's because of their easy to understand explanations of the "whys" and "hows" of baking and also the consistancy of their recipes. This means that for us we will keep using this book.