On Sat, 10 Jul 2004 13:17:09 -0700, (Chris Mc 3)
wrote:

>Okay Wayne, I will try it, but I dont understand...Is the Shortening you
>are talking about like Crisco...etc... ? Seems like it would just make
>the biggest mess, but I'll give it a go. I dont have a food proccesor,
>so I will have to do it by hand.

'Bread' things of various sort can be of the 'quick' or 'yeast'
variety. In a non-yeast preparation, the leavening is usually baking
powder or baking soda and some acidic ingredient. See:
http://users.rcn.com/sue.interport/food/leavning.html

Leavening is what 'lifts' a batter or dough and prevents the result
from being a pan of flour cement.

And before you ask, no, you can't just add baking soda *instead* of
yeast to a bread recipe. The entire process is different.

'Shortening' is fat of some sort. It serves both to flavor and to
provide the 'flakiness' of pastries and biscuits. Ideally, the fat is
not thoroughly mixed into the dry ingredients, but remains in very
small bits entirely coated in flour.

Some bread is flour, water, and yeast with no fat at all. Pie crust is
flour, water, and fat with no leavening agent. Biscuits are flour,
fat, baking powder, and milk. There are thousands of variations on all
of these.

Biscuit mix is the basic 'dry' ingredients (flour, fat, baking powder,
& salt) of biscuits, pancakes, muffins, etc. already mixed. Just add
water or milk and form/bake/panfry, etc.

Would fat make biscuit mix "messy"? Not any more than mixing
ingredients for biscuits, pancakes, etc. would. The 'cutting in'
mentioned in the recipe posted is the process of creating small pieces
of flour-covered fat. This can be done with a food processor, a pastry
blender (a manual gadget -- see:
http://www.betterbaking.com/viewArti...?article_id=44 ), a couple
of knives, or your fingers. The desired end-product is *not* fat
completely mixed with flour.

BTW, whole wheat flour has virtually the same amount of carbohydrates
as white flour, and a few more calories. It does have more fiber.
Baked goods made with *some* whole wheat flour are denser and heavier
than those made with all white flour. When *only* whole wheat flour is
used. additional gluten is usually added to help keep the bread from
resembling a doorstop.

If you want to replace white flour with whole-grain for weight-loss
purposes, you're on the wrong track. If you are after a more healthful
diet, you might try whole-grain cereals or side-dishes like pilafs and
salads rather than baking experiments. If you don't cook much,
whole-grain baking is going to provide quite a challange.