All-purpose. Wheat. White whole-wheat. Self-rising. Bread. Rye. Cake.

What the heck is the difference between all those flours?

Well, I’m here to tell you. Flour 101, here we go!

All-purpose: As you might gather from its rather clever name, all-purpose flour can be used for pretty much anything and everything. People on gluten-free diets can’t have it, but if you don’t have to worry about that, you can use all-purpose for baking, cooking, bread-making… whatever. It’s all good.

Wheat: Wheat flour is like all-purpose’s healthier and less versatile cousin. It has fiber and protein that all-purpose doesn’t have, but it can be a pain to bake with because it tends to produce very dense items. In many recipes, it’s OK to sub up to 1/3 the total amount of all-purpose flour with wheat flour.

White whole-wheat. Now this is good stuff. White whole-wheat flour has all the nutrition of wheat flour with the lightness of all-purpose. I wouldn’t use it to replace the full amount of all-purpose in any recipe, but you should be able to sub in at least half the amount. These delicious muffins use entirely wheat flour, and white whole-wheat gives them a nice, fluffy texture. Read More »

You’ve been trying to stick to that New Year’s resolution like it is your job. You are going to eat healthy if it kills you, damn it. So, instead of stocking your fridge with beer and baked goods, you loaded up on fruits, vegetables…and beer. But, no matter how hard you try, bananas just aren’t as appetizing post-bar as, say, a giant pizza.

And where does that leave you? With some over-priced brown ‘nanas, that’s where. What is a college-girl on a budget to do? How do super low-fat, super tasty banana muffins sound? Too good to be true? Try again: Read More »