Dumping whole wheat flour into my cookie/biscuit recipe

Cafe Society
1

I’ve been experimenting with baking, and I took a recipe for chewy ginger-molasses cookies I found online and modified it.

I zeroed out all the sugar, just keeping a little molasses and adding some candied ginger and chia seeds. I wasn’t sure what this would do to the cookie, but it worked out just fine, resulting in a semi-sweet scone-like biscuit that goes great with tea.

So next time I made it, I modified it again by doubling the amount of powdered cinnamon and ginger, and it turned out even better.

So now I’m wondering what would happen if I replaced the white flour with whole wheat flour. Back when I took a bread-baking class, I was told that you couldn’t make bread without white flour, but I’m wondering what effect it would have on these cookies/biscuits.

What do you think?

2

These are the current ingredients —

4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
8 teaspoons ground ginger
8 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cloves
1 teaspoon fine salt
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup molasses
3 large eggs
Chia seeds

3

What will likely happen is a denser product. The gluten level will not be the same.

At work I make a roll that has both all-purpose flour and bread flour. When a wheat version was desired I increased the water just a little, about five percent. For the required flour I used one-third whole wheat, with the other two thirds being all-purpose flour, no bread flour at all. It give a light textured roll with a nuttier flavor.

For the recipe you posted I’d experiment by doing as I did, replace one-third of the all-purpose with one-third wheat and see what it gets you. If it’s too dense add just a little water, which currently you don’t use. Or you could slightly up the amounts of molasses and unsalted butter. If you get something you like you could try going with more wheat.

4

Thanks! Advice from a real baker! I’ll try that.

If I just go whole hog and go 100 percent whole wheat, is there a chance that I’ll end up with a complete disaster, or just a super-dense biscuit?

5

I see a tough, chewy biscuit with all wheat. Back in home ec class I learned 1/2 and1/2 is as much as you should go. Good luck.

6

King Arthur Flour has a whole big fat article about using whole wheat flour in cookies. There are different kinds of whole wheat flour and they recommend flour made from white whole wheat for cookies since it’s less gritty. I’ve seen it sold here as whole wheat pastry flour.

7

Checked with my wife, and she definitely does not want a denser biscuit. She’s satisfied with using chia seeds for more fiber. The cookies are for her, anyway, so she gets the veto.