Whole Grains

Last year at the local Winter Festival, they had a silent auction to raise money for the rec center and we got a whole grains baking cook book from King Arthur Flour, the local guru of baking. It was a nice book, we got to support the town, and there was a chili cook-off, which I am tempted to join this year, but that’s another story.

Either way, we’ve never really cracked open the book, but have recently found that it is a fountain of information and good ideas about using whole grains in baking. We even tried a few of the recipes. One that we love are the whole grain pancakes, which is nice because you can make the mix up in big batches and freeze it. When you’re ready, just add milk and eggs and you’re good to go.

Recently we had some olive bread from La Panciatta, one of our favorite bakeries, and found it to be good, but not life altering like some of their other breads. N said he bet we could make it, and sure enough, there was a recipe in our whole grain cookbook.

So we gave it a go. One thing about using hardcore cookbooks, especially with baking, is that they take lots of time, much it sitting around waiting for things to rise. Of course, when you’re either a SAHD or real-man in training, you don’t have any time to sit around and watch bread rise, but that’s beside the point.

The recipe spans two days because you have to make the sponge, then there are two rising steps, before you actually put the bread in the oven, but again, that gives you a chance to do other things. We made the bread, and it turned out well, or at least well enough to please the harshest critics, our kids.

I like it when things work out the way they’re supposed to, because it’s such a rare occurrence. I have found that King Arthur recipes generally give good results, so hats off to them, and thanks for reading