Welcome welcome! Thanks for meeting me here for newsletter No. 17.
If you’re reading this, chances are you’re already a subscriber, a fellow follower of all that is exciting and engaging about the world of baking with whole grains.
If this is your first time here, you can expect musings, commentary, ideas and inspiration concerning the act and art of baking, including its more esoteric bits and pieces.
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When I started this weekly newsletter habit, it was so I could share insights into baking from my perspective. By my perspective, I mean from where I am with what I have available. The hope is that this will encourage others to do the same.
Most of the decisions around what and how I bake are led by grain and flour; they are the predominant mediums through which I explore food and create something delicious to share with others.
At the bakery, we work with 7-8 or more grains and flour varieties at any one time; these are grown in different regions of the UK. Some are more local than others, from as little as 40 miles within the same county and up to 150 miles from neighbouring counties and regions a bit further south, east or west.
These flours are grown organically on various-sized, albeit still relatively small, farms in differing soil types during different seasons. Consequently, they are affected by the weather conditions during their whole life cycle from planting to harvest. Some are grown as single varieties; these may be ancient, heritage or modern and others are considered populations rich in genetic diversity.
I am conscious of this choice when sharing recipes from the bakery or my home kitchen. These flours are only available in some places, which is almost the point. The intention is not necessarily to share the recipe with the exact expectation that it is reproduced to be identical but to be a frame of reference, encouraging you to engage with flours or grains regionally available to you.
Identity preservation of crop varieties is essential for greater diversity, which is necessary for healing the planet, as is building strong and resilient local food systems. So this often makes me wonder whether we need more identity preservation of ingredients in recipes. Are such hyperlocal recipes too niche to be part of mainstream food media?
We desire things to be replicable and consistent but to bake with regional flour and grain is to embrace inconsistency, striving for nothing more than something delicious to share. In exchange, you are rewarded with a deeper connection to your food, where it comes from and who has produced it.
The real question is how we write hyperlocal baking recipes that translate across regions. Maybe it’s the way recipes are formatted? When it comes to books from mainstream publishers, specific style guides must be adhered to. Word count, design and layout all come into play. In addition, there are familiar lexical tropes in baking that might not always apply to how specific regional ingredients behave.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. What do you find are the most valuable parts of a recipe? Do you like long headnotes? Prefer short, concise method steps? Value storytelling as a means of evoking the essence of the recipe?
Feel free to get in touch about any of the above if it strikes a chord, and in the meantime, if you want to get to know a new-to-you grain or flour from your local region, try this week’s recipe.
If all of this regional grain and flour talk is new to you and you’re thinking where can I find what’s growing where I am then do a little research to see if there is a flour mill close to you. If you’re based in the UK, The Traditional Cornmillers Guild is a great place to start. Independent bakeries using regional flour usually sell retail bags; if they don’t, ask; they are generally more than happy to bag some up for you or get extra bags in stock.
In addition, I’ll share my Grain Changer Google Map with subscribers to the Extra Credit portion of the newsletter. This resource will be something I hope the community here can engage with and help to build out.
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A simple shortbread to get to know your regional grain.
This is one of my go-to recipes for assessing the qualities of a new to me regional flour. It is straightforward, quick and easy to put together, requiring basic ingredients; there are no bells and whistles here and, as such, nowhere for the flour to hide.
Whether you use freshly milled flour that you mill yourself or the latest harvest of wholegrain flour from your local mill, you’ll be able to see, feel and taste the nuances in texture and flavour.
Why not make two or more different batches using different varieties of wheat or rye to compare them side by side and observe the differences in the final biscuit?
This is not intended to be the perfect recipe for the most incredible shortbread ever but a delicious opportunity to explore the inherent qualities in the flour available to you and help you realise its potential in your favourite recipes.
Ingredients
140g unsalted butter, softened
70g golden caster sugar
1/2 tsp flaky sea salt
200g stoneground regional flour
Additional caster or Demerara sugar to sprinkle.
You'll need a baking tin with a removable bottom; I've made this recipe in an 8-inch round tin and a 9-inch fluted tart tin; expect a slightly thinner or thicker shortbread, depending upon what you have available. Butter the tin well.
Method
Place the softened butter in a food processor and process to smooth.
Add the caster sugar, process again for 1 minute to incorporate, then add the salt, followed by the flour.
Pulse until a dough starts to form, then turn out into the tin, and press the mixture into a smooth, even layer.
Chill in the fridge for 2 hours. The flour can properly hydrate during this time, which is especially useful if using wholemeal flour with large or coarse bran particles.
Before you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 150 degrees C.
Bake the shortbread for 25 minutes.
Remove from the oven and sprinkle with demerara sugar. Allow to cool for 5 minutes until the top feels firm to the touch (the shortbread will be softer underneath).
Remove the outer ring of the tin (if using a loose bottom pan), score the shortbread into bars or triangles, and gently ease the pieces apart, moving some onto another tray if needed.
Return the shortbread to the oven to bake for a further 10-15 minutes (adjust the time as necessary depending on your oven and the thickness of the biscuit). You will know it's ready when the edges of each piece are firm but expect the centres to still feel soft; they will continue to set up as they cool.
Et voila.
I resonate a ton with this. I struggle with the urge to try all the flours, while still remaining intentional and sticking to regional flours. I feel very strongly though, about sticking to grains in the Northeast US . In terms of cookbooks I feel like the only way to make it feasible to swap out grains is either to list characteristics of the grains being used so that someone could find a comparable substitute and encourage people to talk to their local bakers/millers. Or to do some extensive research to list options.
Great article, and something I mull over a ton!
Hello Sarah, today I made some shortbread to discover the characteristics of a whole grain Einkorn that I had bought from a farm next to where I leave, and the dough was extremely crumbly even after adding an egg yolk. If I was about to incorporate other kind of «binders» what would you suggest?
Thank you for this gold mine you have created, I enjoy reading every single post.