Help! Need to cut back on flour in homemade bread!

Hey guys,

I have recently taken to making homemade bread because... well I guess it's fun. Anyways, the other day I was perhaps feeling a bit compulsive, and I ate about 3/4 of the loaf the day that I made it spread out over two meals. I got curious to see just what I ate so I looked at my ingredients and holy cow!

in 1/4 cup of whole wheat flour there are 141 calories!!!

that means that for a whole loaf, with the flour alone (not a whole lot else.. just milk, yeast, water, and a spoonfull of sugar and salt) that means that there is 1760 Calories in a loaf!! That's insane! I feel like wonderbread is not even that bad.

My recipe has in the end between 3 and 4 cups (I start with three, but then knead in some more until it is the right consistancy).

I guess I usually knead it for about half an hour or so in total, and once it's no longer sticky, I stop adding flour to the table that I'm kneading on. I am very new to cooking bread - so maybe I am doing something wrong?

What a coincidence, i just got done making my honey-walnut wheat bread and am in the process of logging it right now.

are you sure theres 141 cals in 1/4 cup of whole wheat flour? cuz im using the gold metal brand (the most popular one) and its only 100 cals... so make sure your logging the right brand

Home made bread isn't always a good low cal solution.  If you plug your recipe into the recipe analyzer it will give you an accurate calorie count.  Wheat Flour, whole grain has 407 calories a cup, so 1/4  cup would be a little over 100 calories.  Always double check the ingredients you enter in the Analyzer!

The advantage to making your own is that you know what went into it.  Reading the labels on packaged bread is horrifying.  There are so many strange ingredients, some of them just fillers.  And have you ever noticed that awful smell in the packaged bread aisle? It's from the preservatives that keep the bread fresh looking long after it would have moldered. It really kills my appetite.

However, the real trick with eating home made bread is portion control.  That's hard when it's something that smells and tastes so good!  You have to weigh your portion and log the correct amount, and don't go back for more. 

It sounds like you don't need to cut back the flour - you need to cut back the size of the BATCH you're baking, and make individual rolls instead of a big loaf so you can control your portions better.

Kajikit - now THAT is an awesome idea! Do I just cook that on a cooking pan like cookies instead of on a bread pan? rolls... I never would have thought.

Clairelane - Weird... I didn't check the recipe wizard online, but I did double check the package, and sure enough it was 141 cal per 1/4 cup. I totally agree with the terrible things that go into normal bread.. I'm trying to do things as much from scratch as I can - generally speaking it's not THAT hard, and for the most part it's a lot more rewarding. But then any departure from eating cereal, rice, and vegetables pretty much exclusively during college is a pretty awesome change. However with that satisfaction is a tendency to go back for seconds ... I just need to work on that whole willpower thing I guess..

passion tea - mmmmm that sounds delicious.. I might have to try something like that sometime!

Actually, since flour can tend to be airy, a 1/4 cup used may not actually be 1/4 a cup.  It would actually be more accurate to weigh it ; ) ... just a tip I picked up from alton brown haha

haha neat! I never would have thought.

Original Post by white_sakura:

Actually, since flour can tend to be airy, a 1/4 cup used may not actually be 1/4 a cup.  It would actually be more accurate to weigh it ; ) ... just a tip I picked up from alton brown haha

 Aha!  So the difference in calories between the two 1/4 cups might be that one is packed down and one is sifted and fluffed up.  Weighing is the way to go!