Milling and Baking with Heritage and Ancient Grains: Bread and Beyond

[Wholemeal Crank]

I wanted to feature the dried cacao fruit I discovered this week at Whole Foods, little thin squares that seem like fruit leather, from 'Blue Stripes Urban Cacao', in 4 oz packages (the recipe uses one whole package).  I've been curious about cacao pulp since as soon as I realized that the pulp was the original attraction of cacao for the indigenous people who discovered it, but since the pulp is key to traditional fermentation of the beans, I figured I'd have to go to a cacao farm to actually taste it.

 

But in the last year, I've had a cacao fruit popsicle from Dick Taylor's Chocolates (only available at their factory store in Eureka), and a cacao fruit bar from them.  I also bought some "Cacao Fruit Bites" found at a health food store, but was disappointed to find that Cacao Fruit was a minority ingredient in all of them. However, not only did this 100% cacao fruit pulp product appear on the shelf, but I saw this very interesting article that suggests the pulp may be less integral to bean processing than I'd suspected--so maybe I can enjoy some cacao fruit while feeling less guilty depriving some beans of what they need to maximize their potential....and maybe separating some of the pulp for this use can actually increase income for the farmers:

 

<https://www.acs.org/pressroom/presspacs/2022/acs-presspac-april-27-2022/new-coc oa-processing-method-produces-fruitier-more-flowery-dark-chocolate.html>

 

I built these comparing several different recipes, including Chewy Chocolate Cookies from the Fannie Farmer Baking Book and some of my own previous versions trying to create a fudgy brownie-like cookie without making something too close to a flourless chocolate cake or even truffle.  I  also made them without gluten so I can share them with a colleague who is gluten-sensitive, and because teff is so very good in chocolates.  The chia is to help them hold together with the gluten-free flours, and can be omitted if using a wheat flour with gluten.

 

Mincing the cacao fruit is difficult because it is so sticky, so I use my favorite technique of letting the food processor do the work by adding the dried fruit with a portion of the flour, so the fruit bits get immediately flour coated as they are chopped, and you can get it quite fine that way.

 

Five by Five Chocolate Cookies

 

3/4 cup / 170 grams unsalted butter (if what you have is salted, see adjustment below)

3/4 cup / 150 grams sugar

 

3 1/2 ounces / 100 grams unsweetened chocolate

 

3 large eggs

 

3 tablespoons / 45 grams water

OR 1/4 cup buttermilk

 

[1 teaspoon vanilla if not using vanilla bean]

 

Milled together 225 grams teff 2 inches vanilla bean [OR use 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, added with the eggs and buttermilk or water]

 

Alternatives for the fresh milled flour 1 1/2 cups / 225 grams teff flour

   1 1/2 cups / 225 grams whole wheat pastry flour or soft wheat flour or all purpose flour

 

2 tablespoons / 12 grams buttermilk powder [omit if using buttermilk]

1/2 cup / 75 grams cocoa

10 grams ground chia seeds [omit if using wheat flour]

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt [omit if using salted butter]

 

4 ounces / 113 grams dried cacao fruit, minced

 

1/2 cup / 2 ounces or 60 grams cacao nibs

2 ounces / 56 grams finely chopped bittersweet chocolate (I used one bar of Dick Taylor's 70% Sambirano; 70% Scharffenberger is also delicious here)

 

Melt the butter and unsweetened chocolate together (I do it in the microwave on lower power to avoid scorching the chocolate, stirring often).  Transfer to mixing bowl, and beat together with the sugar.

 

Beat in the eggs, water or buttermilk, and vanilla if using.

 

Take half of the flour and whirl in food processor with the dried cacao fruit until the fruit is very finely minced.  This stuff is STICKY and the food processor struggles a bit to manage it; I have to stop and pick the gummy coating off the blade a few times to get it done.  You can also chop it with a knife but it is hard work and the knife will need a lot of clearing too.

 

Sift or whisk the flours, chia [if using gluten-free flours], salt, baking powder, buttermilk powder [if using] together, and add to the mixing bowl together with the the flour/cacao fruit, cacao nibs, and chopped chocolate.  Stir together until well mixed, and let sit for several hours at room temperature, or overnight in the refrigerator to hydrate the flours.

 

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F / 163 degrees C.

 

Roll teaspoonsful of dough into small balls, flatten them a little, place them fairly close together on lightly greased or parchment or silpat lined baking sheets (they won't spread much).   Bake 325 degrees for 12 minutes, until they are dry and a little firm on the outside but soft without being gooey on the inside.

 

They're also flexible enough for refrigerator cookies, which take less work but a little longer for chilling.  This is how I made them the second time, and I think it worked better:  let sit for several hours at room temperature or in the refrigerator, to hydrate the flour and let the dough firm up enough to be shaped into rolls.  Take about 1/3 of the dough and form into a roll, about 2 inches in diameter, and wrap in waxed paper or parchment or plastic wrap, and chill until quite firm for neat slicing (about 2 hours in freezer, overnight in refrigerator).

 

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 325°F / 163° C.

 

Slice the rolls 1/4 inch thick and place on prepared baking sheets (lightly greased, or lined with parchment or silpat).  Bake 325°F for about 12 minutes, until they are a little dry and firm on the outside, should still be a little soft but not gooey inside.

 

Also posted to my website.

 

EDITED to update recipe:  I found these work really well as icebox cookies, and decided to use a little less flour so they'd be less 'doughy'.  I also shifted from 50:50 teff:oat to 100% teff.

Edited December 2, 2023 by Wholemeal Crank (log)

[Wholemeal Crank]

I posted a query in the sourdough starter topic about the experiments in baking bread using cultures recovered from ancient Egyptian pottery and looking for actual recipes that use ancient and heritage grains that would have been available as staples in Egypt at that time--einkorn, emmer, barley. 

 

Has anyone here got such a recipe or seen one?

[AAQuesada]

Not a bread, but a cookie from Roxana Jullipat of Friends and Family bakery from her book Mother Grain's is a chocolate chip cookie recipe that invites playing around with different grains including barley & einkorn then talks about how that changes the final result. Not exactly what you were looking for I know but I thought it was interesting. Recipe here.

[Wholemeal Crank]

That's a good tip, and a useful book.  I found the book useful for tips, but a little frustrating for lots of recipes using the heritage grains as additions to white flours instead of 100% whole grains.  But after my first attempt using 50:50 barley:einkorn flour, a ratio that I plucked from thin air, which came out very heavy and gummy despite baking to an internal temperature of 210°C in the romertopf, what I was doing was clearly not the best approach.  The crust was delicious, and if it is cut thin and heavily toasted, it's definitely edible.

 

I'll keep playing with this sourdough--the starter seems nice and zippy--but with different flour blends.  And my next attempt will be flatbreads because they are so much more forgiving than loaves meant to be loftier!

[Wholemeal Crank]

forgot to mention, I've been to Friends and Family--it's not far from me, and a pleasant place to wait for my car to be serviced nearby.  The baked items are delicious, and feel a lot more....substantial....than those at conventional bakeries.  But I have to be careful when I say substantial, because it's more about flavor and mouthfeel of the whole grain contribution, and not about *density*.  They are not heavy at all.  But they do feel like I'm eating something more than a bit of floury sugary fluff. 

[blue_dolphin]

On 3/10/2024 at 6:38 PM, AAQuesada said:

Not a bread, but a cookie from Roxana Jullipat of Friends and Family bakery from her book Mother Grain's is a chocolate chip cookie recipe that invites playing around with different grains including barley & einkorn then talks about how that changes the final result. Not exactly what you were looking for I know but I thought it was interesting. Recipe here.

 

That's the recipe that inspired Nancy Silverton to tweak it in The Cookie that Changed My Life. 

[lindag]

@Shelby

I'm a few years late to this party.  I got my Nutrimill Mockmill recently and ordered some white whole wheat berries.  I made my first loaf this week and couldn't believe the difference in flavor.  Quite an improvement.

My recipe is one that I adapted from here.

I simply omitted the filling.

The flour was 1/3 freshly milled white wheat berries and 2/3 King Arthur AP.

My sourdough was ripe.

My next plan is to make my own AP using 1/3 each of white wheat berries, soft wheat berries and kamut berries.

I don't imagine you've been making much bread with  the heat you're having and that massive garden you having.

[Wholemeal Crank]

I have been trying to get more protein into my breakfasts (HgbA1c made me do it), and I dusted off my copy of The Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley Cookbook by Edith Cottrell.  It's a quirky volume of recipes designed by a vegan nutritionist, and few of the recipe are really inspiring at first glance.  But I remembered her bean-grain waffles fondly, and decided to give them a go again.

 

I gave away my waffle iron ages ago--it took a lot of space and was never reliable, and most of the time pancakes are perfectly satisfying.  I bought the almost toy-sized Dash mini waffle iron, which had enough positive reviews for me to be reassured that it would be more functional than an easy-bake oven; since I mostly am cooking for one, a little one seemed like a reasonable way to go.

 

This morning I made a batch of corn-pecan waffles, with fresh coarsely ground cornmeal, a bit more pecans than she called for, and butter instead of oil, followed her timings and instructions to the letter (if it doesn't release right away, bake it longer).....and wow, they were delicious, with just a bit of butter, or with yogurt and berries.

 

Corn-pecan waffles

 

3/4 cup coarsely ground cornmeal
3/8 cup boiling water

Zap a few seconds in food processor and let stand to thicken

1/2 cup warm water
Not quite 1/3 cup raw pecans
1 tablespoon butter
Pinch salt
1 teaspoon sugar (turbinado/raw/coarse)

 

Zapped for a minute or two again, to be sure the pecans are finely chopped.

The batter thickened wonderfully on standing as she suggested.  1/4 cup filled the tiny waffle iron well.

Heated the dash until the light turned off; after 9 minutes, it was not quite read; at 10 minutes, it was a LOVELY waffle.

 

It was another lesson in coarser flour/meal sometimes being the shortcut to lighter texture in the finished product, bringing to mind some corn muffins I made ages ago by whirling popcorn in a blender to get a coarse meal, when I was away from home and the Kitchenetics mill.  I've now got a second mill (Mockmill) that really does have variable grind capability, unlike the Kitchenetics impact mills that just make fine or ultra fine flours.

 

Today's waffles were grain/bean combo, and I played with the base recipe quite a bit.  They're barley/buckwheat & chestnut limas, and a pinch of cinnamon because cinnamon and buckwheat are so good together.  The coarse flour is definitely helping.  The texture is decent, but the flavor is good but not quite as good.  I think next trial should be with some nuts added to the mix  for flavor and texture.

 

125 grams barley
50 grams buckwheat

Coarsely milled in the mock mill

 

2 1/4 cups water
1 tablespoon butter

1/2 cup dry Christmas lima beans, soaked overnight

1/2 teaspoon salt
Pinch cinnamon

 

These took 11 minutes for a quarter cup waffle, because beans, barley and buckwheat all need longer cooking than corn & pecans.  

 

But this is a fun exploration, and they are quite a bit better than those I remember from the past, when I was using an unreliable second hand waffle iron and not really understanding what I was doing with the recipes.

 

I can see adding these to the weekend routine, with one batch taking quite a while to get all the way through, but while doing other things in the kitchen, prepping a whole batch to have a several meals later in the week will be easy enough.

 

Very glad I resisted discarding this odd little book--I considered it so many times over the years but memory of the waffles kept it on the shelf through purge after purge when I needed to make room for new books on the cookbook shelves.

[AAQuesada]

aaah, funny it comes up but one of the farmers at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market (Wednesday) has Christmas Lima beans!

[Wholemeal Crank]

They do have a subtle nuttiness that reminds me of chestnuts, distinct from commodity limas. 

[Wholemeal Crank]

Cool article about ancient bread:

<https://www.rte.ie/news/newslens/2025/0527/1515125-ancient-bread-turkey/>

"In the early Bronze Age, a piece of bread was buried beneath the threshold of a newly built house in what is today central Turkey.

Now, more than 5,000 years later, archaeologists have unearthed it, and helped a local bakery to recreate the recipe - with customers lining up to buy it.

....

Analyses showed that the bread was made with coarsely ground emmer flour, an ancient variety of wheat, and lentil seeds, with the leaf of an as yet undetermined plant used as yeast. 

....

To get as close as possible to the original recipe, the municipality, after analysing the ancient bread, decided to use Kavilca wheat, a variety that is close to ancient emmer, as well as bulgur and lentils."

 

I've got emmer, and lentil, and bulgur....and now feeling like I must have been channeling an ancient middle-eastern baker when I recently made some random unyeasted flatbreads with bulger, lentils, and barley!  Now I need to eat that up so I can make some room in the freezer for Kulluoba bread, and I've got some maybe appropriate sourdough starter made with emmer and barley that is quite lively and pleasing to work with.  Will report back.  

[Wholemeal Crank]

I should call these inspired by Kulluoba bread, rather than a real attempt at recreation given the multiple liberties I took with the process and lack of access to detailed reports to suggest a proportion of defining ingredients in the original as per the link above:

 

Kulluoba bread

 

250531

 

100 grams bulgur soaked in 100 grams boiling water, cooled

 

About 1/2 cup Sourdough starter (started and maintained with 50-50 fresh milk barley/emmer flours, refreshed the night before and quite vigorous) (about 130 grams)

 

Coarsely milled together

300 grams emmer wheat

100 grams Lentils (red/shelled)

 

25 grams flaxseed, ground separately (added to get a little more omega-3 in my diet, not authentic)

1 teaspoon salt

 

Started with one cup of water but had to add quite a bit more and did not accurately measure it through the process.

 

Once the bulgar had cooled to lukewarm, I used my entirely anachronistic food processor to zap the starter, bulgar, flours, flax, salt together and then poured in the water and zapped a bit more.

 

It rose quite slowly at first, so I punched it down and left it to go overnight after it barely increased to maybe 30% more than initial volume.  The next morning it had risen to almost double in bulk when I punched it down, shaped it into little discs about 3 inches in diameter and half an inch thick.  I covered them with a damp towel and let them rise for about an hour and a half.  they were baked at 375 in the convection oven for about 35 minutes and that might've been a little long because a couple of them had mildly dark bottoms.

 

The end result were quite sour but tasty little loaves with a very chewy texture courtesy of the bulgar, utterly delicious with honey butter.

[Wholemeal Crank]

I'm pretty happy with my current daily bread, enough that I'm trying to figure out all the little hacks and tweaks to make it as perfect as possible.   I bought 50# of Kernza after trying some fabulous prepackaged smaller quantities, and while the bulk version did not have the same marvelous floral notes as that one smaller batch did, it has a wonderful nutty flavor and these loaves end up just a wee bit sour, nutty and sweet.  I add a fair bit of flax for more omega 3 and to help with low gluten from Kernza grain.  The loaves are quite small, because I'm primarily baking for one and since I officially crossed over to diabetes, I can only eat so much bread, even when it is as fiber-filled as I can make it.  

 

Mill together to fairly fine wheat

 

185 grams Joaquin oro hard red wheat 
100 grams Kernza

 

Add to food processor along with 

 

180 mL water

 

And pulse several times to wet the flour but not necessarily a smooth dough.

Separately, stir together and let thicken

 

18 grams flax, freshly ground 
30 mL water

 

After 30 minutes of autolyse, add these to the food processor

 

1 teaspoon salt 
A scant 1/8 teaspoon dimalt:ascorbic acid:all purpose flour mix [1.3 g ascorbic acid with 6.5 g dimalt mix plus 7.8 g all purpose flour to dilute it enough to measure it out]
The flax gel prepared above
60 grams refreshed starter

 

And briefly process, adding extra water as needed for a soft smooth dough (about 40-50 mL).  Knead just a bit by hand to be sure any harder lumps are worked in.  

 

Place in a bowl, transfer to proof box set at 90 degrees and let rise a couple of hours.  Turn out, knead/fold a couple of times and set to refrigerator overnight.

 

Return to proof box, let rise, gently knead/shape with just 2-3 more turns, then proof open in flour/fabric lined 'banneton' [improvised from a deep fryer basket  and bit of old sheet to fit my mini dutch oven (1.5L)] while preheating the pot & oven to 475° (at least 30 minutes, longer if the dough needs it).

 

Flip out *gently* onto strip of floured parchment.  Use this sling to place the loaf in the heated dutch oven.  

 

Cover and bake 475°F  x 15 minutes.

Remove lid & drop temp to 425°F for 10 minutes. 

 

Pop it out of the pot and place directly on oven rack.  Drop temp to 350°F and bake another 15 minutes.  Bake to 210°F internal temperature.

 

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2rti61i][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54786490877_6af32b1b12_z.jpg[/img][/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/2rti61i]Oven SPRING![/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/debunix/]debunix[/url], on Flickr

 

 

I created a photo essay on my Flickr for an earlier version of this bread with a different flour mix (hard white wheat without the kernza), but the results are very similar with the kernza/Joaquin oro,nice rise and crust but slightly gummy crumb.  

 

These loaves are so nice now that I’m working to really try to perfect the recipe:  the bread comes out with just a hint of sourness plus really nice nutty whole wheat flavor.  I've already played with saltolyse vs autolyse, different time/temp steps for the baking, and using or skipping my home-made bread improver.  And because my low-gluten loaves came out so flat if the sides weren't supported, I searched and searched and found some fabulous 1.5 quart dutch ovens that are just right for one of my loaves (my previous generic loaf starting with 500g wheat was too much for these little pots).  

 

 

*I’m using my own starter that I began with the Pineapple Juice Solution from Breadtopia & Peter Reinhart, but starting with, and consistently refreshed with a fresh milled emmer:barley 50:50 blend flour.

 

It’s a remarkable starter, the best I’ve ever had. After refreshing to make a loaf, I cover it with a thick layer of the emmer:barley flour, and I just leave it in the refrigerator in a glass wire-bail jar, sealed. I open it up the night before I want to use it, stir the covering flour and some fresh filtered water into it, and keep it room temp overnight, or in a proof box if I want to use it a little sooner. 

 

I suspect the barley is a big part of why it is such a very happy riser.

Edited Sunday at 08:15 PM by Wholemeal Crank
adding one more photo (log)

[Wholemeal Crank]

I made these for the birthday of a colleague who cannot eat gluten (taking lots of precautions including cleaning everything before use because everything in my kitchen is covered with flour dust from milling all the time, and using the mill I keep gluten-free for the milling) and loves banana bread.  I dislike most banana bread because it is too heavy, too sweet, and bland.  These cupcakes are light, buttery, not too sweet for me, and spicy enough to be interesting.  And the Date-Coconut-Caramel sauce (not my invention, see below) was the brilliant finishing touch.

 

Banana Cupcakes with Date-Coconut Caramel Sauce

 

Mill together

 

200 grams sorghum
50 grams sweet brown rice

6 allspice
About 3 pieces mace
6 Long peppers
1/2 teaspoon whole mahleb

 

(Substitute about 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice, 1/2 teaspoon ground mace or freshly ground nutmeg, scant 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground long pepper or fresh ground black pepper plus a pinch of ground cardamom, and 1/2 teaspoon ground mahleb seeds or 1 teaspoon almond extract) 

 

Remove a portion of the fresh ground flour to food processor and add

 

185 grams Blue Stripes Banana cacao dried fruit 'gummies'** (packages are 125 grams but I had one and a half on hand)

 

Blitz in food processor until the dried fruit bits are very fine pieces (sesame-seed like) so they can hydrate and soften  by the end of baking.

 

50 grams toasted coconut milk powder*
45 grams flax seed, ground very fine
2/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
100 grams roasted unsalted cashews, grated/ground to a light sandy texture (I use my rotary nut grater for this)

 

Sift/whisk in until all evenly blended

 

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

 

Beat into flour until thoroughly mixed 

 

1 1/2 C thoroughly mashed ripe bananas (premixed with one of the eggs and left to sit for 30 minutes if not fully ripe)

 

Beat until smooth

 

3 eggs (remember to the one you used to speed-ripen the bananas, if you did that)

 

Beat in one by one and then beat in enough water to make a thick but spoonable batter.  Spoon into muffin cups (they can be basically full, they rose to a nice dome but did not overtop the cups) and bake 375°F degrees about 20 minutes (internal temp about 205 degrees).

 

While they cool, prepare date-coconut-caramel as a dip for the topping.  I tweaked the original Date Caramel recipe from bakedbymelissa.com a little bit by using powdered coconut milk, some toasted* and some not.

 

I used all 16 large and plump medjool dates in the package I bought, reserved the soaking liquid, zapped in the food processor with some of their soaking liquid, added a scoop of the toasted coconut milk powder, and another 2 scoops of the untoasted coconut milk powder, and then I think all of the rest of the soaking liquid plus some extra water to make a puree just thick enough to dip and coat the top of the cupcakes without dripping down the sides. 

Next time I will cut this down because this made twice as much as I needed for 2 dozen cupcakes.

 
*I always keep coconut milk powder on hand and not coconut milk, and I toast some of it from time to time in the oven or in a skillet for extra flavor oomph.   

 

**I would probably substitute dried unsweetened Philippine mango if I did not happen to have this on hand; as I made it, the banana flavor was heightened by the dried banana and the dried cacao fruit is quite tart and not very chocolatey.

 

Edited Sunday at 08:57 PM by Wholemeal Crank
forgot links (log)