Good Things Come in Small Packages
petit épeautre. einkorn. little spelt. escanda menor. piccolo farro.
Hello from newsletter no. 15. Thank you for taking the time to be here this week, and if it’s your first time here, welcome!
If you’re the kind of soul that loves good commentary, ideas and inspiration concerning the world of baking, including its more esoteric bits and pieces, then you’re in the right place. Here we explore such things with a resourceful approach that aims to champion flavour and wholesome, seasonal ingredients.
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A flurry of new ingredients has recently arrived at the bakery, some ordered by myself and others kindly sent as samples to try out and test in various baking projects. Each one is a treat, and I will share more about them as and when I can, but for the moment, one, in particular, is proving fun to get to know again.
Yes, readers, I’m having a golden einkorn moment.
Kind of like Picasso’s ‘rose period’, it’s a feeling characterised by baking that feels especially joyful right now. There’s a warmth and a lightness to it that isn’t always easy to find when you turn your passion into a business. Indeed there are times when I fall a little out of love with it; routine, pressure, energy bills, equipment malfunctions and admin all chip away at your resolve and something you once found therapeutic is fraught and stressful.
I’ve gone through these dips enough times to know that that is all it is, and it too shall pass. Rediscovering your love for something through a new touch, feel, taste, or scent stirs any stagnant pot of creativity. Before you know it, you’re back on your metaphorical baking bike, riding off into the sunset.
Einkorn is truly unique, the most ancient of the ancient grains, unhybridised and fully content with it, free to be as it should, happy to stay just as it is supposed to be.
This anachronism is what makes it all the more appealing. All the reasons it was left behind and deemed unsuited to the onward development of agriculture are why it is so wonderful to work with.
Each spikelet contains just one grain (hence the ‘ein’ in einkorn) that is smaller in size than modern wheat grains (hence the ‘petit’, ‘little’, ‘piccolo’ and ‘menor’ in its various European names). Yields, therefore, are also much smaller.
As a hulled wheat, it is not the easiest to process, each tiny grain wrapped in a tight-fitting husk of a jacket that does not thresh freely. It has a distinct flavour and colour, rich and buttery yellow from carotenoids such as lutein (also found in egg yolks, butternut squash, orange peppers and corn), and its technical and molecular traits can bring challenges that can require you to question conventional techniques.
While I love it in bread applications, this is where it can be most challenging to work with; its baking characteristics are incompatible with the prolific artisan hearth style loaf, least not when used in its milled form at a high percentage of the total flour weight. However, it comes into its own in pan loaves, which provide it with the temporary structural support it needs, producing a golden loaf with compact, close crumb and 10/10 toastability.
Bread-making prowess aside, this relic is a gateway for any baker keen to broaden the range and quality of flours they bake with. It is neither hard nor soft (existing before the classification was needed for such things), and its unique attributes are just as desirable in cakes, bars, biscuits and cookies.
Within these recipes, you can learn its quirks, how it feels to work with and how it interacts with other ingredients, all with sound structural guardrails to lean on in the form of butter, eggs and sugar.
A good place to start is with a reliable recipe, one that’s small batch, low stakes (by that, I mean guaranteed to be eaten no matter what it turns out like), one you know inside and out, a simple shortbread, a chocolate chip cookie or a pancake. Take that recipe and use Einkorn flour instead of your usual flour; observe any differences in how the dough or batter looks, feels and tastes. Make notes, was the batter too stiff? Was the crumb more compact? Did it rise, fall or crumble unexpectedly? Use these notes to guide you on where to try the flour out next.
To inspire some more confidence, you could give these blondies a go. Brown butter, golden einkorn, the cocoa butter notes of white chocolate and the bracing bitterness of candied grapefruit are a quartet simpatico.
Brown Butter Einkorn Blondie with Candied Grapefruit & White Chocolate.
You want an abundance of brown freckles in the final batter, so be brave when browning your butter. Making sure it is intensely toasty will balance the sweetness of the brown sugar, pushing it further into complex caramel territory. Candied bitter orange or lemon could replace the grapefruit as a counterpoint to the white chocolate chunks. Alternate endings might see you skip the candied citrus and chocolate in favour of cacao nibs, salted and smoked almonds or briny black olives.
Ingredients
Makes 1 x 8x8 inch pan, 9 generous portions, 16 graceful bites.
205g unsalted butter, browned
230g soft light brown sugar
2 eggs
195g whole grain einkorn flour
3/4tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
55g candied grapefruit, diced medium-fine
45g white chocolate, roughly chopped
Method
Preheat the oven to 140°C Fan. Grease and line an 8x8 tin with greaseproof paper to cover the base and all four sides to make for easy blondie removal post-bake.
Brown the butter, remove it from the heat and allow it to cool slightly. In the meantime, whisk the brown sugar and eggs until light and foamy, then stream in the melted butter, whisking well to incorporate it.
Combine the flour, baking powder and sea salt in a separate bowl. Finely milled einkorn has a tendency to clump, so whisk lightly by hand to evenly distribute the ingredients, ensuring any clumps are broken down.
Add the dry ingredients to the batter, followed by almost all of the candied grapefruit and white chocolate (hold some of the mix-ins back to scatter over the surface once the batter is in the pan), and mix to combine.
Pour the batter into the tin, level with an offset spatula and sprinkle the remaining candied citrus and chocolate on the surface, ensuring each eventual portion is garnished with enough of each.
Bake for 12 minutes, rotate and bake for a further 5-8 minutes until the blondie appears dry and puffed, with an even crust colour across the surface. A little pan shake should see the centre portion jiggle a little. If it still looks wet or there is any movement towards the outer edge portions, continue to bake until you see the right signs.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool fully. This blondie can fall dramatically to settle in its final fudgy form leaving steep sides of crust on the edge pieces that are temptingly ergonomic to hold.
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