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I’m aware of the importance of whole grains in a healthy diet.  You can’t get away from whole grains these days even if you tried.  And while I’m far from a health food fanatic, the truth is that a lot of whole grain foods are truly tasty.  I cook with them often, even going so far as to make barley pilaf instead of rice.  And as far as rice itself goes, I’m much more inclined to use brown rice, unless on the rare occasion I make risotto.

Yesterday, though, I decided to see if I could sneak a cup of whole wheat flour into a chocolate and strawberry cake.  My theory was that the intense flavor of the cocoa and the fancy vanilla extract would completely obfuscate the whole wheat flour’s presence.  And in a further fit of health-conscious substitutions, I decided at the last minute to not use any butter in the cake.  I used a mixture of apple sauce, raw sugar, canola oil, and two eggs for the liquid.

Well, the cake was really, really moist, a good thing.  But it tasted of the whole wheat flour, which was a disappointment in a piece of chocolate cake.  I learned a lesson (for the umpteenth time) that despite what you might hear, healthy substitutions do not always work out for the better.  I would sooner have no cake at all than a lackluster, “healthy” cake.  My suspicion that you’re better off having a decadent dessert just once in a while as opposed to fiddling with a good recipe proved true.

The upside to the whole story is that I had no qualms about eating a piece of the cake this morning.  It made a fine breakfast, with whole grains and fruit to boot!