Grinding Sprouted Wheat - an actual near disaster

As I mentioned a few blogs ago, I have undertaken the sprouting & grinding of my own wheat for flour, to meet the requirements of the Body Chemistry Diet that I am undertaking with my housemate.  There are three major steps to the process: sprouting, dehydrating, and grinding.  The sprouting element is the most lengthy one, and after that the dehydrating adds another day to the process--as, to grind the wheat berries they have to be completely dried out--while the grinding itself is fairly simple but potentially difficult.

The first time I undertook this sprouting-drying-grinding adventure, the flour turned out coarse but usable enough.  Drama arose when the cookies all melded into one giant pan-sized cookie.  The problem was that, in order to make the peanut butter cookie recipe we were after, we had to substitute honey for sugar--and in so doing, we doomed our cookies to excessive runny-ness.  We couldn't add more sprouted-grain flour ... because we didn't have any more.  The cookies tasted fine, but I won't be posting the recipe until I can find a way to make them look palatable (and cookie-ish).  We enjoyed them with full glasses of milk and a few episodes of Castle, our current TV-show obsession.  (I mean, come on!  A writer and a cop team up to tackle crazy crimes?  It's like NCIS, but with a literary nerd bent!)

Tonight we ground some more flour, about a cup worth.  Actually, we quadruple-ground the berries this time, producing a much, much finer texture.  I'm eying the potential of a small cinnamon-roll bake thing.  We'll see if I end up going that direction-or end up making muffins.

RECIPE: Whole Wheat Molasses Quick Bread

I definitely fall into a negative cycle of baking whenever I'm stressed.  Between learning how to file my own tax returns and dodging creepy chiropractors, I bake.  Yesterday, an emotional day, I turned to my sister's handy dandy Christmas gift (Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything) for ideas.  This cookbook is, by the way, the best cookbook I've ever owned.  Not that I own many.  Still, the format and comprehensive nature of HtCE is brilliant.  I love it.  I sometimes wonder what I've done to deserve such a good cookbook.  I have stuck pretty close to the original ingredients, save only I had no cornmeal on hand and added in oats and milled flax seed instead.

Despite being denser than your average white bread, the loaf I made turned out to be quite light and moist in texture.  For being made of one hundred per cent whole wheat flour, I was impressed with the result.  I have to admit I was as skeptical as you probably are, but don't pronounce a final judgment before actually trying some!

Whole Wheat Molasses Quick Bread

MY INGREDIENTS:

2 & 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oats
1/3 cup milled flax seed
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 & 2/3 cups yogurt
1/2 cup molasses
honey

DIRECTIONS:

1. Heat the oven to 325°F. Grease your loaf pan (I used Baker's Joy, since I love it so).

2. Combine all dry ingredients. Stir the molasses and a good squirt of honey into the yogurt. Stir the liquid into the dry ingredients until just combined, then pour/scoop into the loaf pan. Bake until firm and a toothpick or sharp knife inserted in the center comes out clean (about 60-70 minutes). Cool for 15 minutes before removing the loaf from the pan.

3. Consume.  Ravenously.

There are quite a few variations, evidently, that you can make to this recipe.  The original recipe, in fact, doesn't use oats or flax but has 1/2 cup cornmeal instead.  I'm a huge fan of flax and oats, however, so I was willing to take a risk and avoid taking another trip to the store for cornmeal.  Also, the cookbook mentioned substituting half of the flour with white bread flour and replacing all of the molasses with honey for a lighter, sweeter loaf.  You can also use buttermilk instead of yogurt or create your own buttermilk with 1 1/2 cups milk and 2 tablespoons white vinegar (if you do this, you will need to warm the milk slightly, add the vinegar, and let the mixture sit for a while before adding it to your dry ingredients).  Really, the possibilities are endless.  Because it's a yeast-free dough, it's not as temperamental.

Did I mention this bread is delicious?  I decimated most of the loaf while it was hot out of the oven last night, but I managed to save a thick slice for my lunch today.  Mmmm.