Wheat Class Recipes

Tonight I am honored to be introducing the benefits and ease of grinding your own wheat to a local group of women, at least I don't think there will be any men there.  But if there are that is awesome!  The more people I can share this with the better!!!

First, for those that were not able to attend let me share how I got into all this in the first place...

My husband is what I call a survivalist, others would call him a prepper.  He insists we need to be prepared in case the world as we know it comes to an end. So when he started talking about storing wheat I asked him what he planned to do with it. He said that I was to bake bread with it. Of course I laughed and told him he was crazy!


About the same time I met my friend Melissa (click here for her blog) who I soon found out grinds her own wheat and bakes bread with it! Interesting that I was more easily convinced by my friend than my husband!!!  Anyway, Melissa gave me her old Bread Beckers recipe book and I immediately ordered the free CD from their website.

One of the sections of this CD made a huge impact on my view of this whole grinding wheat idea.  It quickly went from just being able to use the wheat we have stored to changing to a more healthy eating lifestyle and avoiding processed foods as much as possible.


Almost 4 years ago I made an investment in our health and bought a WonderMill and a Cuisinart. Then I had my husband bring me a couple buckets of the wheat he had stored and started baking bread. Yes, it really was that simple.  I started with the bread, and also muffins, waffles, and homemade instant oatmeal. Click on the links for the recipes.  The oatmeal does not use the wheat mill, but it was a big part of the change we made so I included it here as well.

Here is my detailed blog post on the steps I follow to making bread.  The post really did take longer to write than it does to mix the dough!
 
Recently I have expanded and have made Ezekiel bread, where I used the bread recipe but substituted Ezekiel mixture flour for wheat flour.  I also made some Oatmeal Cookies and my hubby experimented with Wheat Chips.
 
Here are some other links:
 
Other blogs I like:


http://heavenlyhomemakers.com/

http://www.simplylivingsmart.com/

http://paulasbread.blogspot.com/



Where I have bought wheat, other ingredients & supplies:


Bread Beckers Co-op
http://info.breadbeckers.com/coops/

Honeyville
http://store.honeyvillegrain.com/

Emergency Essentials
http://beprepared.com/

Ezekiel Mixture

The Ezekiel bread recipe from the Bread Beckers book was okay, but was something did not make alot of.  Then I recently watched a portion of one of the online classes on the Bread Beckers website where she said that she uses the Ezekiel mixture in the regular bread recipe and in other recipes as well! 

I can see that I will be using alot more Ezekiel mix flour!  I have already tried it instead of hard white flour in the regular bread recipe and had good results.  But more exciting is that it worked beautifully in the waffle recipe and I am sure that it will work well in muffins as well.  This is exciting because by using the Ezekiel mixture I am adding more protein to our diet without anyone realizing it.

Here is the Ezekiel mixture from the Bread Beckers recipe book.  This all gets ground in the wheat mill same as grinding wheat.

2 1/2 cups hard red wheat
1 1/2 cups spelt
1/2 cup barley
1/4 cup millet
1/4 cup green lentils
2 tbsp great northern beans
2 tbsp red kidney beans
2 tbsp pinto beans

Homemade Bread

My good friend Melissa introduced me to the concept of grinding your own grain to get freshly ground flour. I have been making homemade bread for quite some time now. But with all the ooh's and ahh's I get and the comments such as "Oh, I could never do that", I thought it was time to do a post on how I make bread.  I am sure that it will take me longer to create this post than it did to make these two loaves of bread!

Start with 3 1/2 teaspoons of yeast. 

Then two cups of water.  This looks like more than 2 cups, but really it is actually 2 cups.
 There is some optical illusion that happened with my camera that I could not seem to overcome. 

The water needs to be quite warm, about 90-110 degrees F. 
Just the right temperature in my microwave is a bit over a minute.

Meanwhile, a minute is about all you need to scoop out 4 cups of wheat. 
I prefer hard white for bread.

Dump the warm water into the yeast.  It needs to sit for a few minutes so the yeast can proof. 
So I let it sit there proofing away while I do the next few steps. 
Or if you are a preschooler then you would say POOF everytime the yeast expands!

Then turn on the grain mill and dump in the 4 cups of wheat.  It is quite loud when you first turn it on so if you have small children then you should give them a "BIG NOISE" alert because if you forget then you will scare them.  And I have not found a good way to make bread and deal with screaming children.
And, yes, I leave my mill set on the finest setting even for bread. 

While the yeast is proofing and the grain is grinding I pour 1/2 cup of oil.

On top of the oil I pour 1/2 cup of honey.

By now the grain mill has done its job - yes it truly only takes a few minutes to grind the grain!

And the yeast is done proofing so I add 2 teaspoons of salt.

Pour in the oil and honey.

Add 3 cups of flour. 
This flour is super fluffy so I tend to pack it down in the cup a bit.
Then turn on the mixer.

Meanwhile I get my sink ready to wash dishes and by the time I have the water ready...

the flour is all mixed in and it is nice and smooth.

Then add in a heaping teaspoon of dough enhancer. 
The directions say a tablespoon, but I figure a heaping teaspoon is close enough.

and add two more cups of flour.
At this point I change the beater to the dough hook and let it mix for a minute until all the flour is mixed in.

The dough is starting to form, but it is still way to sticky so we have to add more flour!
I have never measured how much I add, but my best guess is about a 1/4 cup at a time.

My mixer has a timer on it, so at this point I set it for 15 minutes. 
This is enough time to get the dough into a ball and for the mixer to do enough kneading.

After the flour has mixed in, if it is still sticking to the sides I add a bit more flour.

Sometimes when I stop to add more flour I also scrape the sides

or sometimes I will push the dough off the dough hook.
I don't know why, just something that I do

Finally you will get a ball of dough that does not stick to the sides anymore.
Then I let the mixer do the kneading until the 15 minutes is up.

I put any leftover flour into a ziploc bag and store in the freezer.
I often use this flour for making waffles or muffins.

I also turn on the oven light to make it nice and warm in the oven.
Then while I am waiting for the mixer to finish I am doing the dishes. 

When the mixer is done I form the dough into a ball and put it into a bowl. 

Then the whole bowl goes into the oven.  Do not put this kind of bowl into a preheated oven!
The only warmth is from the oven light. It needs to rise until double, so I usually set the timer for 1 hour 45 minutes.

Up to this point I have spent maybe half an hour in the kitchen. Yep thats it, only half an hour to mix the dough and do the dishes!

This is the ball after 1 hour and 45 minutes.  I punch it down and knead it slightly before cutting it in half.



Form the two halves into basic loaf shapes and back into the oven to rise again, which should take about 1 hour 20 minutes. I also cover the pans with a dishcloth, don't know why...



After the second rising take the pans out of the oven so you can preheat to 350.
Then the pans go back in to bake for 25-30 minutes.  My oven is best at 29 minutes.

Here are the baked loaves.  Usually I get more rise out of my dough, so I am not sure what happened that day.  Maybe taking all the pictures threw the routine off.

After 10 minutes out of the oven I dump the loaves out of the pans and onto a cooling rack.  The great part about the cooling rack is that it leaves lines on the bottom of the loaf which happen to be perfect guides for cutting just the right thickness of a slice of bread.

So there you go.  A recipe and picture instructions for making homemade bread with freshly ground flour.  If you have a mixer and invest in a grinder and some wheat you can do this too.  I won't even start on the health benefits right now because I need to go have a piece...too bad you can't smell the house when it is baking or taste that end piece when it is still warm enough to melt the butter YUMMM

My thoughts on soaking grains

Today Laura at heavenlyhomemakers.com posted about the controversy of soaking grains. Below is my response to her post. I thought I would post it here too. Afterall I originally started this blog to document my baking experiences, you would think that I should occasionally write about it!

I have been grinding grain and baking with it (mostly bread) for only about a year. I only recently heard of soaking grains and have not had the time to seriously research it - so thank you for doing this!

Here are my thoughts after reading the article ...

I actually use grain and recipes from the BreadBeckers Co-op. Sue Becker also has a CD that they will send you for free. Here is the webpage address for info on how to get it. http://www.breadbeckers.com/freestuff.htm

This CD has an incredible amount of information. I have a friend that was debating the whole thing. She listened to this CD and bought her grain mill the very next day! It is that powerful and you should get it!

I have not read anything by the others you mentioned, so I suppose my opinions are somewhat one-sided. However, I have read alot of the info on the Bread Beckers website. An interesting fact is that Sue Becker has a degree in food science and jokes on her CD that she reads microbiology text books for fun! Those facts alone make me comfortable in her research and her knowledge in the information she provides about nutrition.

Several things jumped out at me when I read Sue Becker's article you linked to. Her words are in quotations.

1. "Only about 10% of the phytic acid is broken down in an overnight soak and that is not enough to make a significant difference."

Only 10%! That certainly does not convince me it is a worthwhile process. My question is how much percentage of other nutrients is lost during this time. I personally freeze any unused ground flour to stop the loss of nutrients. I can't recall the percentages of lost nutrients as the hours go by - it is on her CD though. If I remember correctly, most of the nutritional value is lost within 48 hours. I wonder then just how much is lost overnight?

2. "I have never read anything to document the statement about our ancestors and “virtually all pre-industrialized people” soaking their grains."

I grew up on the Canadian prairies and it seems that in many ways we are decades behind. One of the things that is still quite common in this area is preparing, storing and preserving food in much the same way as the pioneers did. My generation is losing this knowledge as our parents and grandparents are leaving us.

However, I am currently visiting at my mom's house and asked her if she has ever heard of soaking grains or flour overnight. She looked at me as if I was speaking a different language. She has never heard of anything like this. I never remember eating bought bread at my Grandma's, she always made her own bread. Of course she did not grind her own wheat - they used to have flour mills to do that. And like many did, when the flour mills started to close she started to buy her flour at the store. You really have to listen to Sue Becker's CD to hear just how terrible store bought flour is. I have not bought flour since I heard it.

Anyway, that is not the point. The point is that my Grandmother made bread the same way bread was made for many, many generations. She never soaked flour - and so neither will I!!!

The only advantage I have over my Grandma is that I have the knowledge and ability to grind my own flour and therefore make bread that she would be proud of.

bread failure

Today I made a batch of bread dough. It seemed normal and that it was going to be nice. I set in the oven with the oven light on to rise. An hour later I came back and it had not risen!! That was the biggest shock of the day!! I could not understand what happened, my bread always rises. I have learned that I have sometimes not let it rise enough, but it always rises!

Then I remembered that I had to fill up my yeast jar and that I keep the extra yeast in the fridge. I am guessing that hot water hitting cold yeast is probably not a good combination.

Still not sure what to do with unrisen bread! I know that I could probably make pizza dough with it, but I have not tackled homemade pizza yet and don't have all the ingredients. Oh what a dilemma.

Using a grain mill is so easy!!

My bloggy friend Kerry at Ramblings of a Wannabe Housewife had another great question that I really wanted to answer. Her comment was this,

Well, its a great blog! Godd for you for opening it up to your "real life". I am learning so muchh, especially about emergency prep and bread baking. I am even considering a grain mill. Is that a crazy thought for someone who works outside of the home?!?!

It is crazy not to get one! So yes, absolutely get a grain mill!!! I love it, my family loves what I make with it, and we are healthier.

The first thing you need to know is that I hated to cook. In fact the deal we made before we got married was that hubby would cook, I would clean. This was a wonderful arrangement until we decided to live in the country and hubby would commute to the city. He no longer gets home in time to do the cooking, so now I have to do all the cooking. The funny thing is that once I started to do it I found some really easy recipes that are really good.

As for baking homemade bread, I started to research all the benefits of milling your own grain and baking with freshly milled flour. It is amazing all the nutritional value that is lost in the processing of flour, even store bought whole wheat flour! Here is just one example that you should read from Nutrition Lifestyles. After reading this I am on a quest to never use store bought flour ever again!

I started with making bread. But first I needed to make an investment. Yes, this was alot of money to pay at once, but considering that I will never again buy a loaf of bread, store bought flour, cake mixes, eggos, etc etc, it will eventually save us financially. If I just consider no longer buying bread, all of this will be paid for in about a year. Of course the biggest benefit is nutritional, and that is well worth it. So here is what I needed to buy:

• a good mixer, I bought a Cuisinart because the reviews for the Kitchenaids in my price range said they were not great for mixing bread dough.
• a grain mill, I bought a Wondermill. Again based on reviews it seemed like this was a better choice over the Nutrimill.
• some grain. We bought 45 lb of grain in 5 gallon pails, we now have several of these pails. It was never a question if we would store grain for long term food storage, the deal for me is how would I use it regularly

Now that I had all the things I needed, I was ready to bake. If you can follow a recipe you can bake bread. And it really does not take any longer to use a grain mill. Here is what I do:

• Click here for the recipe I have been using regularly, first I measure out how many cups of grain I need to grind, about 4 1/2 cups. This will give me some leftover that I freeze and will use later to coat stew meat or roasts in.
• I turn on the grain mill and dump it in.
• While it is running I heat 2 cups of water in the microwave for 1 minute.
• Then I measure 1/2 cup of oil and 1/2 (or less) of honey. Here's a tip I learned from My girlfriend -pour the oil in first, then the honey and it all comes out nicely. Otherwise the honey just sticks everywhere!
• By the time I have dumped the water, oil, and honey into the mixer the mill has finished. So then I just have to measure out the flour. I do pack it down because it is very fluffy compared to store bought flour that has had months to settle!

And that is it, all the rest of the steps are no different than baking bread with regular flour. The link to th recipe and the rest of the ingredients is above. The way I see it there is only 2 extra steps. 1. measure the grain, and 2. pack the flour!

I challenge you to bake your own bread, and if you do, then there is no reason why you can not also grind your own wheat! If I can do it, (remember that I am very cooking challenged) anyone can do it.

Let me know what your plans are to bake your bread or what your experiences have been. I would love to hear from others who are doing this.

Southwestern Pot Roast

This is the most simple meal I prepare - less than 15 minutes!

8 small or 4 med-lrg potatoes, cut into large chunks
1/2 pound baby carrots
1 large onion, cut into large slices

place potatos and carrots on bottom of crockpot

Coat 2-3 lb roast (trimmed of fat) with 1/4 cup of flour (I keep the extra flour I grind when I make bread for this purpose) and place floured roast on top of potatoes and carrots, place onions in any spaces or on top of roast

Pour 1 jar (16-20 oz) medium salsa over all

Cook for 6-7 hours in crockpot

Edited to add that I really must give the proper credit for this recipe, it certainly isn't my idea!! It comes from the Oct-03 #201 issue of Betty Crocker Slow Cooker Meals.

Crockpot Stew

1/2 cup flour (whenever I have ground too much flour when making bread I put the leftover flour into a baggie and freeze it to preserve the nutrients)
2 lbs stew meat (I have used beef and pork - both work well)

put flour and meat into a large ziploc bag and shake to coat meat pieces then place floured meat into the crockpot

spinkle on the following:
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp paprika

Add:
1/2 red onion, large slices
1 red pepper, diced
1 lb package of frozen mixed veggies

boil 3 cups of water and dissolve 3 beef broth cubes then add 3 tsp Worchesterchire sauce and pour over meat and veggies, stir just to mix ingredients

Cook in crockpot for 6-7 hours, stirring occasionally

bread update

I have make several batches of the 1st bread dough recipe that I tried. It is going so well that I have not bothered to attempt anything else. My hubby has been cutting down on carbs lately so we have not been going through as much bread, I have been eating more bread, especially at breakfast. Let me tell you that eating bread from freshly milled grain has some unexpected "regular" benefits! I had long ago switched to 100% whole wheat store bought bread and never really noticed any changes. This just make me so much more convinced of the benefits of milling my own wheat.

I recently heard a cd of a presentation from breadbeckers.com. It gives all the details of these benefits and more. You can get the cd for free by simply requesting it. If you are at all interested in learning more about using freshly milled grains you absolutely must get this cd!

Bread doesn't understand 'hold on'

I made my next batch of bread, using the first recipe and Pastry setting on the WonderMill when I ground the wheat. I think everything else was the same. I wanted to see if I could get the same results as the last time. But bread does not seem to wait while life in our house continues!

As I was washing the dishes during the first rise I happened to look out the window and see a puppy playing in the yard. Well of course I have to go and investigate to see how friendly the puppy is. Turns out she is really sweet and ran behind me for cover when our two dogs tried to chase her. Anyways, the kids came out to see as well and we ended up playing with the puppy. They thought she was alot of fun and I think they thought she was our new puppy!

Meanwhile my bread dough has risen too much and started to dry out. When we cme back in I punched it down and shaped it into two loaves and left those for the second rising.

By now my hubby was home and we decide to go down the street to see if we could find where the dog lives. Now we are gone quite a long time because we met a new family and chatted for a very long time. The good news was that we found out where the dog belongs and returned him later that day. Anyways, when we got back the dough had risen way too much again and had really started to dry out this time.

So I thought I would try to salvage it by punching it dwn again and letting it rise a third time. I remember reading something about three risings but I couldn't recall all the details. So I quickly punched it down and reshaped them, left them to rise and then into the oven.

By this time it was time for putting the kids to bed. And apparently I cannot hear the timer go off from upstairs. When I realized that they had been in too long I jumped up and ran down stairs, my hubby asked "what's wrong" and I yelled "THE BREAD" I don't know how long it was in, but it was not burned. It also wasn't the same as the last batch, it was alot heavier and denser. So I guess the longer you let it bake the denser it gets???? Maybe someday I will test that, for now I was happy that it wasn't totally ruined and I didn't burn the house down!

Retry bread from the first recipe

I went back to the first bread recipe and tried it again. It turned out much better this time, although I am not sure what the big difference was. The only thing that I did really different was that I milled the wheat on the pastry setting so that I could use the left over for cookies. But I didnt really see that much difference in the flour.

The dough mixedup much better and was nearly cleaning off the sides of the bowl at 5 cups. Oh, as I measured I also packed the flour more this time, so maybe that made a difference too. I only added maybe another 1/2 cup and I didn't have to knead it by hand at all. I did a little bit just to get a feel for the dough.

It rose beautifully in the bowl, I didn't do anything different there. And it also rose great in the pans and they were left out the whole time.

It is a much tastier and lighter bread than the second one I tried. This was even good enough to give one of the loaves to our neighbors who have been spoiling us with all sorts of baked items. As you can see from the picture, Sam just loves the bread - this was not the loaf that went to the neighbors lol. I turned my back and he took abig bite out of it!!!

Second try at baking bread

I baked more bread a couple days ago and while the results were okay, I was not overly impressed with the recipe. It is a recipe from the new version of the Bread Beckers book that I just received. I used this one because it is a favorite of my friend Melissa's. Here is the recipe:

1 1/2 cups hot water
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup honey
2 tsp salt
2 tbsp lecithin
1 tsp gluten (plus I added 1 tsp dough enhancer)
4-4 1/2 cups freshly milled flour
1/2 cup flax seed
1 tbsp yeast

Combine water, oil, honey,salt. Add lecithn, gluten, half of flour, and flax seed. Mix thoroughly. Add yeast and enough flour to make a soft dough. Knead until smooth and elastic (about 5-6 minutes). Let rise until double, shape and let rise again until double. For 2 1lb loaves bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes.

So that is the recipe I used. Here are the problems I had.

Flour
I think I used closer to 5 cups, and maybe a bit more than that. I am wondering if the flour I have is part of the problem and that I simply will have to use more than asked for, even in the recipes written for fresh milled flour. This time I did mill some extra just to be sure.

Kneading
I kept adding flour in small amounts and it seemed like it was getting close to the point that it would clean the sides of the bowl. However, I felt that the mixer was being over worked because the dough seemed to be so heavy. So I pulled it out and kneaded it by hand, adding a bit more flour and then it seemed to be good. It wasn't nearly as sticky as the last recipe.

Rising
The dough did rise, so I think that the yeast was ok, but it certainly did not rise to double in the bowl. The dough rose some more while in the pans, I did put the pans in the oven that was slightly warm. But again it did not rise to double. So I ended up with some pretty flat looking loaves.

Bread
This bread was alot denser and heavier than the last loaves. It was still tasty but not as good as the last batch. But DH said that he preferred this batch and that it made better sandwiches. Gofigure!

Here is what they looked like. The cookies are the peanut butter ones I made with the left over flour.



What's next
I think I will go back to the first recipe and try to perfect that one before moving on to something different. That way I can compare any changes that I make to a standard recipe.

First bread recipe

The recipe I used for the first bread baking was from an older BreadBeckers recipe book:

Slightly Sweet But Very Simple Whole Wheat Bread

2 cups hot water (about a minute in the microwave works well)
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup honey (may use 1/4 cup)
3 1/2 tsp instant yeast
5 cups fresh milled flour (may need more flour to get the dough to clean the sides of the bowl)
2 tsp salt
1 - 2 tbsp lecithin (optional)
1/2 tsp gluten (optional)
1 - 2 tbsp dough enhancer (optional)

Combine water and yeast to proof, then add salt, oil, honey and 3 cups flour. Mix thoroughly. Add the lecithin, gluten, or dough enhancer and 2 more cups of flour.  Add more flour as necessary until the dough cleans the sides of the bowl.  Let  mixer knead until smooth and elastic (about 10 min).

Let rise to double. Shape into two loaves, place into greased medium pans and let rise again.

Bake at 350F for about 30 minutes.

So there it is, the very first recipe I used for baking bread. I will have to try it again, either with less water or more flour and see if that makes it less sticky than it was the first time.

First bread

My new grain mill arrived Monday afternoon and Tuesday I started my first batch of bread dough. The grain mill worked beautifully and I had fresh flour in no time at all. After reading all the benefits to using fresh groud flour I am so excited about this whole process. Have you seen what they take out of wheat to get to white flour!!! check out this article and you will see what I mean!http://www.nutritionlifestyles.com/homemill.htm

Sticky Dough!
I used a recipe in the BreadBeckers book (will post that later) As I was mixing it I thought for sure it was going to be a disaster. It just seemed so sticky and did not pull away from the sides of the bowl like I thought it was supposed to. The recipe called for 5 cups of fresh milled flour, I added that plus alot more. I lost track of how much unfortunately. Next time I will keep track. Anyways, I used up all the fresh flour and ended up adding some white flour. Then I was worried that the mixer would be overworked. I had read some reviews about KitchenAid mixers not doing well with bread dough, which is one of the reasons why I went with the Cuisinart. And so I did not know if that would happen to my new mixer and I did not want to kill it on the second time I used it. So I pulled out the sticky mess added some more flour and started kneading it by hand. I kept adding more flour until it wasn't too sticky anymore. I will have to make more to figure out what the problem is, my guess is the high humidity here or maybe just the grain???

Forgot to time the rising
Then I put it back in the bowl to let it rise to double - following the directions in the recipe. I was busy with kids and forgot to time how long I let it rise - oops! Then I took it out, cut into two and shaped it into the loaf pans, let it rise some more. Again I forgot to time it and put them into the oven when they seemed to rise double again. I think I got lucky and the dough seemed to do what it was supposed to. But in the future I must remember to time it so that I can compare.

Baking Bread
The loaves seem to bake just fine and we had pretty good bread with supper. My husband was like a little kid at Christmas!














But the bigger compliment was how much the kids liked it, especially Sam. This picture also shows the inside of the loaf. It was really moist and easy to butter.

New hobby or change to lifestyle?

I have a close friend who has a grain mill and grinds her own wheat for baking. My husband, who has a strong survivalist personality, instantly fell in love with the concept and with Melissa's yummy breads. And so for the past couple years he has been bugging me to get a grain mill and bake bread. Ok, so I finally gave in and decided to take homemaker to the most extreme level. I have never baked a cake (until today), made a roast or homemade soup (until a couple weeks ago), and I have only baked buns a couple times and made cookies just a few times. So the whole concept of bread baking was bizarre at best.

But now that I have decided to do it, I am putting in 110% to do it well. I have to - the equipment was several hundred dollars and I cannot just let it sit and collect dust! I was only going to buy the grain mill until my cheapo mixe blew up last week - so now I have a shiny new Cuisinart mixer and a Wondermill grain mill. Add in a couple 50lb bags of wheat and I am ready to bake!

I am doing this blog, as a way to document and journal my baking experiences. I want to be able to learn as I go and because I am a logical and analytical learner I must be organized and hav it all written out. That whole accountant thing has followed me into homemaking! And so, if you happen to stumble upon this humble little blog please say hi and any advice or suggestions offered are appreciated.