A Grinding Challenge: Putting Fresh Whole Grains to the Test

Don’t you hate that feeling of spending time on a recipe and ending up with a total FAIL?

I’m here for you. Want to make me bake and make all the mistakes so you don’t have to?

Here’s the backstory: It’s been 6 years since I’ve had a whole wheat sourdough starter, and I never got up the guts to try gluten-free sourdough. I’ve bought too many boxes of GF crackers at Costco over the last few years.  I don’t make our own bread at all anymore, and I probably only use my old grain mill once a month.

But I got a new mill last fall, and it’s pretty amazing. I wanted to bake more but I couldn’t seem to get back in the groove!

KS to the Rescue!

I decided to turn to my readers for inspiration and motivation. I sent out a survey asking them what they’d be most interested in watching me bake in a once-a-week challenge for January and February.

Here are the top responses for general topics:

• Comparing recipes for whole wheat, gluten-free, sourdough and einkorn (oh great…the hardest one…but right up my alley here at Kitchen Stewardship!)
• How to bake by weight and translate fav recipes to weights (this was hard…but doable!)
• GF sourdough (coming!)
• Experimenting with einkorn (working on it!)
• Milling gluten-free flour blends (coming!)

We’ll try to incorporate my kids into as much of this as possible, since of course with the Kids Cook Real Food eCourse, it’s my mission to teach kids to cook!

And now, what kind of whole grain recipes are the KSers most interested in?

1. Pizza dough testing
2. Tortillas testing
3. Ancient grain (spelt or einkorn) quick breads/muffins
4. Crackers testing
5. Biscuits testing
6. Sourdough bread

Gluten-free sandwich bread and the best freshly milled GF flour blend were up there too, along with pasta and cookies…I’ll be delivering on MANY of these topics over the next 6 weeks or so in the Grinding Grains Challenge series. I have a bunch of interviews with experts: a farmer, a baker, a miller and more. No rub-a-dub-dub though.

I totally failed at planning and testing one recipe per week in Jan/Feb, as it turns out. Life just happened without me and I couldn’t catch up! I did try some things here and there, and now this month I finally got it together to really do some testing. It was more fun (and more work!) to try multiple recipes on one day than one a week, anyway. #right #yesimcrazy

What’s Coming?

The Grinding Challenge Series is getting me to use my Mockmill grain mill! Here’s what we’re covering:

• Intro to the challenge and a video of setting up the Mockmill for the first time
• How to Translate Whole Wheat Recipe to Einkorn (and an interview with an einkorn farmer)
• Bio-Individuality – why it’s both the new face of health and the genesis of this whole project
• How to Translate Baking Recipes to Weights
• Why Baking with Weights is the Best for Kids
• Testing Pizza Dough with Freshly Milled Grain: Whole Wheat, Einkorn, Gluten-free (whole grain and not-whole-grain)
• Interview with a Master Gluten-free Baker
• Testing Tortillas with Freshly Milled Grain: Whole Wheat, Einkorn, Gluten-free
• Why Mill Your Own Gluten-free Grains?
• How to Make a Gluten-free Sourdough Starter
• Whole Grain, Gum-Free Gluten-free Flour Blend (& a bit on whether xanthan gum is bad for you)
• Interview with a Grain Milling Expert
• The Official Kitchen Stewardship Mockmill Review

Plus where to find einkorn and unlock your special offer on the Mockmill HERE. 

And the Recipes?

And in fact, we kick off this week with a recipe that a sweet reader shared with me for Spelt Banana Muffins, and then my adaptation for Einkorn (and some different flavors).

Opening and Setting Up a Mockmill

Want to see the fun little product sample that started all this craziness? (And it really has been a little crazy, like 5 pizza recipes in one weekend – watch my Instagram stories to see the real-life action!)

I did a video of myself unboxing and prepping the Mockmill for the first time, and it’s pretty realistic. Thank goodness there were written instructions in the box (with photos!) and I didn’t have to go 100% by memory from the how-to video I watch a week or two prior!

Video: Setting up a Mockmill Grain Mill for the First Time

If you can’t view the video above, click Setting up a Mockmill Grain Mill for the First Time to see it directly on YouTube.

Oy.

It’s actually REALLY, really easy, and I love love love that you can get IN there to fix problems, unlike the Nutrimill. But I bumble a bit, don’t I?

I am excited to jump into this series, starting tomorrow with our first interview! And don’t worry – if grinding your own flour sounds like something you’d never do in a million years, you can still learn a LOT about baking and grains in general from this series.