Friday, January 16, 2009

Flour making day...flour power.

Want to know one of my best secrets for great bread?

Great flour...

This is my big engine wheat mill grinder thingie for making flour. It sounds like a jet. Pause for effect...clap hands together, open fingers...pensive. Nice. Want a tour? I use it for whole wheat bread flour, and also the cake and pastry flour. Depending on the wheat. I use half hard white wheat and half barley for the cake flour. 3/4 hard wheat and 1/4 barley for pastry flour. I like barley in my flour. If you don't, I'm sorry. This is what I do. Today we just made bread flour. I wasn't feeling ambitious.
--Come on! I'm milling my own flour, that's ambitious enough. It's over ambitious. It's freaky sick and wrong. It's...well again, totally ME.

To all of my flour I add one pinch of the little seeds of cardamon. It's in the same family as bay leaf so it helps keep bugs away...not that we have any issues with that. I'm married to OCD clean Ace . Personally I just like the subtle flavor.


Here's what it looks like. Super fresh so I never have bitter bread from rancid wheat flour. Ahh.


I love homemade flour.
I'll use this within the next week or so. It's always fresh ground. If you grind yours and don't use it that quickly, store in the fridge in a sealed container.

4 comments:

La Table De Nana said...

Your header is out of this world beautiful..

Chef Tess said...

Thank you! That means a lot coming from a photography queen like yourself! Love your blog so much!

Amy said...

Hold the phone! I just bought a wheat grinder, albeit a hand cranker, but one nonetheless. Where's your wheat bread recipe?

Chef Tess said...

Amy Loo... Did you get the crank?! How exciting! Basic bread recipe is under "basic bread" in the threads here. Or on Multiply underhttp://chefstephanie.multiply.com/journal/item/30/Yeast_Breads...without_a_bread_machine_Are_you_scared...The overnight started bread is one of my favorites! Have fun darling!