Baking at home is one of those special activities. What to bake, how to combine the ingredients, the delicious smells from the oven and who will be the lucky ones to eat the results – these are all part of why we love it.
Of course there are many decisions to make on how we bake. One of the most important is the ingredients you use. Definitely more pleasure and nutrition is derived from using whole ingredients, yielding the best flavours too, and for baking there can be no higher priority than the quality of the flour and rolled grains.
Many folk are familiar with stone ground flours available from health food stores, and that these flours are better quality than highly processed flours from the large factories (that sieve away much of the goodness so the flour doesn’t spoil), but few are aware that even the “better” ground flours come a good way short of what nature intended. In centuries past, whole grains were ground and consumed within a few days. The main reason for this was the germ part of the grains (containing the highly nutritious volatile oils) would quickly go rancid within a few days, causing the flour to spoil. It really does make an enormous difference to use fresh flours and flakes, in both taste and nutrition. Every time we have visitors they comment on how tasty the bread is… and that’s the fresh flour difference.
So if we want to use fresh whole grain stone ground flour in the balance nature intended, we must grind the grains fresh as we need them – just as the ancient civilisations did, and just as we did in the west until the 1800’s!…
Enter the kitchen stone grain mill. Small enough to keep in the kitchen, slow enough to retain the nutrients of the grains, and designed well enough (brilliantly in fact) to produce good output rates with stunning appearance in natural timber housings. This wonderful combination of features gives not only fresh flour on demand in your kitchen for decades, but a great deal of satisfaction from the whole process.
Also enter the flaker, or oat roller. These nifty little mills use rollers to gently press whole grains into flakes. Rolled Oats is the main use, taking whole oat groats (de-hulled oat grains readily found in organic shops these days) and turning the handle to press them into oat flakes – simple, easy and absolutely packed with nutrition and a fresh taste.
And enter a classic recipe with both fresh flour and flakes – Skippy Anzac Biscuits. Chewy, light and crunchy, these are a homely afternoon treat or perfect gift.
Ingredients
1 cup stone ground, fresh wholemeal flour
1 cup freshly rolled oats
1/2 cup desiccated coconut
1/2 cup brown sugar
100g butter
1 tblspn golden syrup
1/2 tspn bi-carb soda
4 tblspn boiling water
Method
preheat oven at 170 Celsius (347 F)
mix dry ingredients In a large bowl
gently warm butter with golden syrup in a small saucepan
dissolve soda in the hot water and add carefully to the butter mixture
stir this liquid into the dry ingredients and mix well
roll into balls and place on baking tray, pressing gently to flatten into biscuit
Bake for 12 – 15mins or until golden
Skippy Grain Mills have been importing grain mills to Australia for over 22 years, selling direct and supporting the small Aussie home milling community. With a useful range of high quality Grinders and Flakers that give decades of faithful service, there’s a hand or electric model to suit everyone.
The Skippy Grain Mills Team