Visited a bakery in Portland that uses only whole wheat flour

I stopped by this small shop called Grain & Hearth last weekend and noticed all their pastries had this dense, nutty texture. Turns out they refuse to use any white flour at all, even for croissants. Is that really doable without sacrificing the flaky layers, or am I just missing something?

2 comments

2 Comments

skyler4317d ago

Whole wheat croissants are a tough sell in my experience. You can definitely make them, but you have to really know what you're doing with hydration and resting the dough. Most bakeries that try end up with something that's more like a dense roll than a proper flaky croissant. I get the appeal of going all whole wheat, but there's a reason white flour has been the standard for laminated doughs for so long. Take this with a grain of salt, but I'd bet they're sacrificing a lot of that light airy texture for the whole grain thing. Your mileage may vary though, maybe they've got some trick I haven't seen.

hugo_schmidt16d ago

Actually I read somewhere that whole wheat flour actually absorbs more water than white flour, so you'd need to really jack up the hydration to even get close to a decent laminated dough. Someone on a bread forum I lurk on said they had to add almost 20% more water just to get the dough pliable enough for folding without tearing. That might be the trick that bakery figured out, but I still bet those croissants come out heavier than the traditional ones no matter what you do with the hydration levels.