by Sue Van Slooten

Milling your own flour is a delicious way to add nutrition and flavor to your recipes. Want maximum taste? Mill your own.

Cover Photo Copyrighted by iStockphoto.com/MonaMakela. Courtesy of Robert Rose Inc.

Many of you already know I recently invested in a grain mill, the hand crank variety. Now I have a cookbook to go along with it. If you buy only one book on the subject, this is it: “The Essential Home-Ground Flour Book,” by Sue Becker [1]. Sue is incredible; as she covers just about any aspect you can think of on milling, flours, grains, with one hundred delicious recipes to boot. Everything is very well researched, and extremely well written. The amount of information is incredible, but I found it a fabulous read. Yes, I read cookbooks, and I really like this one. Maybe you have noticed that by now.

It was a tough choice deciding which one to do first, but I settled on the Buckwheat Corn Muffins, the Fruit variation; I used blueberries. (It wasn’t easy hanging on to the berries until baking time—the blueberry vultures were about.) I am also doing Dark Molasses Oatmeal Bread, and you will hear about that in the next blog. Most of you know Oatmeal is one of my favourites, but this one is with a twist. Stay tuned. Right now let’s make some of these absolutely delicious muffins, you won’t regret having these for breakfast!

Buckwheat Corn Muffins

Ingredients:

1 cup freshly milled buckwheat flour

½ cup freshly milled corn flour

2 ½ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

¼ cup oil

2 tbsp. liquid honey

1 ripe banana, mashed

2 eggs

1 ¼ milk or nondairy alternative*

And for the variation: ½ cup light evaporated cane sugar, and ½ cup blueberries.**

You will need a greased 12-cup muffin tin, a 24-cup mini muffin pan. I used unbleached paper liners by If You Care [2].

Preheat your oven to 375 F.

1. In a large bowl, whisk together buckwheat flour, corn flour, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the center. Set aside.

2. In another bowl, whisk together oil, honey, banana, and eggs. Add all at once to flour mixture. Mix just until incorporated.

3. Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups, filling three-quarters full. Bake in a preheated oven for fifteen minutes (12 minutes for mini-muffins), until golden brown and tops spring back when lightly touched.

*Sue suggests almond, rice, soy or coconut in this recipe.

** Variation:

Buckwheat Corn Fruit Muffins: In Step 1, add ½ cup light evaporated cane sugar (I confess, I didn’t add the extra sugar, apologies Sue!). After mixing batter in Step 2, gently fold in ½ cup blueberries, diced peaches or sliced strawberries.

Important Notes:

1. Becker, Sue. “The Essential Home-Ground Flour Book.” Toronto, ON: Robert Rose Inc., 2016.

2. Try Unbleached, Totally Chlorine-Free (TCF) baking cups by If You Care. They’re as good or better than parchment, no greasing required. www.ifyoucare.com Imported from Sweden.

You can follow my further adventures and check out my Real Food blog on MOTHER EARTH NEWS at wwwMotherEarthNews.com. If you wish, you can email me at suevanslooten@icloud.com. I’d be thrilled to hear from you!

Chocolate Chip Sourdough Pancakes with Butter Leaves and Dried Cranberries

A lot of folks love sourdough, and are always looking for new ways to incorporate it into their recipes. In my never-ending search for the better pancake, I came up with this novel recipe. It’s fairly healthy for you, (if you ignore the chocolate chips), as you use buckwheat flour. My son loves chocolate chip pancakes (of course, I like them too!), so I thought, can I use the chocolate with the sourdough? I’m happy to report that yes, you can. Then to just gild the pancake lily a little more, dried cranberries got sprinkled on top, for color and more flavor. Of course, maple syrup (or anything else you like), goes on top. As an added touch, especially as we near the holidays, I came across a novel way to use butter decoratively: Butter leaves. They are very easy to make once you get the hang of them and look impressive. Check it out in my photo, but you can use any small cutter. One word of caution, as I used a fairly plain leaf, after the maple leaf I was after tended to crumble. Sharp edges don’t do well. Hearts would work well, or a snowman. Let’s start with the pancakes:

Chocolate Chip Sourdough Pancakes

I cup buckwheat flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

½ tsp. baking powder

¼ cup sugar

2 tbl. vegetable oil

1 egg

1 cup sourdough starter, fed or unfed

¾ cup mini chocolate chips, or ½ cup of the larger chips

½ cup dried cranberries

In a large bowl or measuring cup (at least 4 cups), place your dry ingredients. Add your oil, egg, sourdough starter and mini-chips, mixing well. If you’re using the larger, regular chocolate chips, just sprinkle a few on each pancake as you cook them. Have a hot griddle or large frying pan oiled, even if it’s non-stick. Pour dollops of batter, which should be “pancake consistency” onto the pan. If your batter is too thick, you can always thin with some milk. When bubbles form, and the bottom is browned, flip. If using the large chips, don’t let cook too long after flipping, so they don’t burn. Place onto plates or a large platter when cooked. Sprinkle with dried cranberries and add syrup. Eat while warm.

For the Butter Leaves:

¼ to 1/3 inch slices of butter, salted or unsalted, slightly chilled

1” cookie cutters or canapé cutters

Use the cutters just as if you were making cookies, only instead of dough, it’s butter. You don’t want the butter too cold, or it tends to crumble. You don’t want it softened either, or they will not turn out. I would suggest taking refrigerated butter out and letting it warm up for 10-15 minutes. After pushing the cutter into the butter, use the end of a fork or tip of a spoon to push the butter out gently. Even a finger works well. I made mine a little thicker, about 1/3”, use that if they break too much. Any scraps can be re-used for other purposes. Keep chilled.

You can follow my further adventures, or sign up for a cooking class, at www.svanslooten.com. You also can always email a question at suevanslooten@ripnet.com. We’d love to hear from you!