I've been playing around with a white cake version of this for cupcakes. It's bake sale season around here and cupcakes are always a big seller. The problem I kept running into was texture. My 15 yr old said it tasted like cornbread, meaning a coarse texture. I ended up using cake flour and superfine sugar and that seemed to do the trick. The original recipe calls for all purpose flour so I got out my scale and weighed an equal amount of cake flour (125g/cup). I'm not sure on the substitution ratio in cups of cake flour for all- purpose. I also added in about 1/3 c of sprinkles to make them funfetti:) This is my version of the recipe Vegan Cupcakes from allrecipes. This is definitely not vegan anymore. 2c all purpose flour (I used 250g cake flour) 1 1/2 c buttermilk 1 c superfine sugar 2 t baking powder 1/2 t baking soda 1/2 t salt 1/2 c oil 1/2 t vanilla 1/2 t almond extract Preheat oven to 350�. Line 18 muffin cups with liners. In large bowl whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, soda and salt. In separate bowl whisk together buttermilk, oil, and extracts. Pour into the dry ingredients and mix just until blended. Spoon into muffin cups and bake 15-20 minutes.

Being tangentally Russian, I also thought of honeycake. Here's a version from "The Enchanted Broccoli Forest" by Mollie Katzen. Jewish New Year Honeycake Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a medium sized loaf pan. Can also make in an 8 inch square cake pan. 1 cup light honey 1 large egg 3 TBLSP melted butter 1/2 cup cold black coffee (I've had British versions of this made with strong tea) 1 cup whole wheat flour 1 cup unbleached white flour 1/4 tsp. salt 2 1/2 tsp. baking powder A dash or two of: cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice (1/8 tsp. if you have a measure for that) 1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts Beat the honey at high speed with an electric mixer for about 5 mintues. It will become frothy, white and opaque. Add the egg, butter and coffee. Beat well. Sift together the dry ingredints. Fold them along with half the nuts, into the first mixture. Spread into the prepared pan; sprinkle remaining nuts on top. Bake 50-60 minute (until a probing knife comes out clean) Traditional topping: 1 cup dried apricots and 1 cup drid prunes. Pour 2 cups boiling water over them and let them sit for about 3 hours. A fruit syrup will form. Spoon this mixture over each serving. Or 2 cups sliced apples 2 TBLSP sweet butter 1 TBLSP lemon juice dash cinnamon 1 TBLSP honey Saute the apple slices in butter over low flame. Add the lemon and cinnamon and cook until the apples are soft. Remove from the heat and stir in the honey. Spoon onto honeycake. Here's another recipe from that cookbook, but I have never made it. Russian Coffeecake Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease a 10 inch tube pan. 1 cup butter, softened 1 packed brown sugar 4 large eggs 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract 1 cup buttermilk (room temp.) Lpink's note: can sub yogurt or sour cream for buttermilk 2 cups unbleached flour 1 cup whole wheat flour 3 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. salt Filling: 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips 1/2 cup whole almonds 1/2 cup shredded, unsweetened coconut 1/2 cut peach or apricot jam 1/2 cup sliced dried apricots (I think you could improvise stuff you have on hand, like other dried fruits and types of nut) Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Stir in the vanilla. Sift together the flours, baking powder, soda and salt. Add the dry mixture and the buttermilk alternately to the butter mixture. Use a wooden spoon, and mix just enough to blend after each addition. Place the chocolate chips and almonds in a blender jar. Whirl together at high speed for about 20-30 seconds (until pulverized but not mushy) Lpink: a food processor would be even easier. Combine with the coconut. Spoon half the batter into the prepared pan. Gently spreading it until even. Spoon dollops of jam here and there onto batter (don't try to spread it, leave it in little blobs), and sprinkle on the apricots and about 2/3 of the chocolate nut mix. Add the remaining batter, distributing it nicely. Sprinkle the top with the remaining chocolate-nut mix, and bake the cake for 50-60 minutes (until a paring knife comes out clean). Cool completely before removing from the pan. Sounds like a pretty fancy cake!

Personally, I wouldn't make quick breads of any kind with King Arthur White Wheat Flour because it's too high in protein/gluten to get really good results - whole wheat pastry flour would be a better choice, as Terri pointed out. The increase in gluten is probably the cause of the texture changes you experienced. Making quick breads is all about keeping gluten-development to a minimum. This includes the type of flour used and the amount of mixing. When substituting whole wheat flour for all-purpose in a recipe, you may benefit from reducing (as in leaving it out completely) the amount of whole wheat flour by 1 or 2 tablespoons per cup to compensate for the higher gluten. Because the KA whole wheat flour has more gluten, as well as bran in it, both will absorb more hydration than all-purpose flour would and can alter the texture. It's easier to reduce the amount of flour, rather than increase the hydration. When using KA White Wheat Flour it would be even more important to keep mixing to a bare minimum so you don't over-develop the gluten in the flour (which is higher than all-purpose). I mill my own flour and use the same wheat (13.1% protein) as they use for King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour. I purchase it from the local stone mill that mills King Arthur White Whole Wheat for this region. I normally mill SOFT white wheat (Bob's Red Mill) for quick breads because it has a much lower protein/gluten content; OR use a 3:1 mixture of hard white wheat and spelt to lower the amount of protein/gluten. I made crumb cake muffins yesterday, and as another option to reduce the gluten I used 3/4 hard white wheat and 1/4 high-maize resistant starch (to reduce the gluten, lower the glycemic impact and increase the fiber), and the muffins were very light and tender. The original recipe called for all-purpose flour. Good luck with your new trials. What a great recipe to have to "work on" (LOL)! -Grainlady

Not sure just what's going on here, I submitted this post several hours ago, but it never showed up here. Probably hit a wrong button or something. Anyhow, PWM, I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you, I've been a bit under the weather for a few days, So everything around here is wa-a--ay behind. But here's the aforementioned recipe: Bourbon Pecan Cake Ingredients: 2 C whole red candied cherries 2 C seedless white raisins 2 C Bourbon 2 C butter, softened 2 C granulated sugar 2 C dark brown sugar, firmly packed 8 eggs, separated 5 C sifted all-purpose flour 4 C pecan halves 1 ½ tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt 2 tsp ground nutmeg Directions: Grease a 10 in tube pan, line with wax paper or parchment paper, grease and lightly flour the paper. Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Combine cherries, raisins and bourbon in large mixing bowl. Cover tightly and let stand overnight in the refrigerator. (My note: This will be fine if left for several days. Once I left it for almost two weeks, no harm done). Drain the fruit, reserve the bourbon. Place butter in large bowl, beat on medium speed with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add sugars gradually, beating on medium speed until well blended. Combine 1/4 C of the flour with the pecan halves. Sift remaining flour with the baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Add 2 C of the flour to the creamed mixture, mix in thoroughly. Add the reserved bourbon and the remaining flour alternately, ending with flour. Beat well after each addition Beat egg whites until stiff, but not dry, fold them gently into the cake batter. Fold the drained fruits and floured pecans into the cake batter, blending thoroughly. Pour batter into prepared pan, to within 1 in of the top. (If extra batter, bake in appropriately sized loaf pan, prepared the same as the tube pan.) Bake tube pan 4 to 5 hours, and loaf pan about 2 hours, or until cake tester inserted into center of cake comes out clean. Be careful not to over bake! Cool cakes in pans on wire racks 2 to 3 hours. Remove cakes from pans, peel off the paper. Wrap cakes in cheesecloth saturated with bourbon, then wrap in foil or plastic wrap and store in a tightly covered container in the refrigerator for several weeks. (I have found it needs at least 6 weeks ‘aging’ to fully develop flavor) Keep the cheesecloth damp with additional bourbon as needed.. A glaze can be made, using confectioner’s sugar mixed with enough bourbon to make it ‘pourable’. Drizzle over cake sparingly! Or simply dust cakes with powdered sugar before presenting! If using the bourbon glaze, don’t serve to children. Hopefully I can do it right this time, and it will post! Rusty