SC - Steam in the Bread Oven

[Donna Hrynkiw]

Greetings from E.B.

On Thu, 26 Nov 1998 DianaFiona at aol.com wrote:
> 	Something to keep in mind if you are going to play with grinding
> your own
> flour some more; I heard a tidbit at some point the that claimed that very
> freshly ground flour, while nutritionally superior, didn't bake up as well as
> older flour did. Not sure what reason was given, this is just one of those
> half-remembered dabs of info most of us have running around our heads.......
> ;-) 

Your note is appreciated. I have a similar tidbit in my brain that says
bread made from wheat-flour which had aged some (unknown) amount of time
was whiter than bread made from fresh-ground (which tended to be yellower).

I wish I'd made a note of where I'd read that...

Incidentally, two cups of wheat berries grinds out to almost exactly
two-and-a-half cups flour.

> 	For anyone who is unfamiliar with spelt, it is an ancient form
> of wheat, and
> thus has enough gluten to rise well on it's own. My mom, who is allergic to
> regular wheat (Among many other things!), has used it to make bread that is
> very little different from whole wheat.
> 		Ldy Diana

Well! With this confirmation, I am prepared to jump into an all-spelt loaf
with both feet. I started with a recipe that was (I think) 1 cup spelt to
5 cups wheat flour + 1 cup rye flour. I've been slowly replacing flour with
spelt, but now I'm going to try all-spelt the next time I get the chance.
I find the bread it makes to be somewhat finer in the crumb than whole
wheat -- but then again, I use a rather coursely-ground whole wheat flour.

E.B.
==================
|*>  Gaudium est in Factio (The Joy is in the Doing.)
|    Mistress Elizabeth "E.B." Braidwood, Northern Region, An Tir
|    braidwood at antir.sca.org  or donna at kwantlen.bc.ca
"Look, a miniature Northern War Banner."  --Don Mathieu

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