Baking Day

Traditionally Monday is washing day, but this week it was baking day. This stemmed partially from the need to bring treats Tuesday for Bible study and partially from being stir crazy having to sit so much for healing of my knee! So Monday morning before we did school, I ground up soft white wheat berries into flour and started baking.

First I made cornbread. Oh was that good made with fresh ground corn!

Next I made 5 loaves of banana bread from the extremely ripe bananas that were scenting our kitchen.



Healthier Banana Bread - Large Batch

-1200 grams (about 8 c, I may reduce this slightly next time) soft white wheat, freshly ground flour

-1 t salt

-2 t Baking Powder

-4 t Baking Soda

-2 c chopped walnuts

In a separate bowl, combine and mix smoothly:

-4 eggs

-2 c Sucanat

-1 c Honey

-4 c sour milk, buttermilk, Kefir or yogurt or a combination (I used 3 c Kefir and 1 c yogurt)

-8 mashed overripe bananas

Combine wet and dry ingredients thoroughly. This went into 4 4x8 loaf pans plus 1 slightly smaller loaf pan. The amount will vary on the size of your loaf pan. I fill the pans about 3/4 full. Bake about 50 minutes at 350*. Remove from loaf pan and cool. The loaves that are not immediately eaten can be wrapped and frozen.




Last but not least, I made chocolate chip cookies which I blogged about before, but have tweaked the recipe some more and wanted to write down the changes before I forget!


Healthier Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cream together:
-2 c butter at room temperature
-2 c Turbinado Sugar
-1 c Sucanat
-1/2 c Honey

Add and blend until smooth:
-4 eggs
-2 t Vanilla


Mix in:
-600 grams (about 4 c regular flour) fresh ground soft white wheat flour
-1 t salt
-2 t Baking Powder
-2 t Baking Soda


When smooth, add:
-4 c Old Fashioned Oatmeal
-2 packages (24 oz) chocolate chips (we love Trader Joe's chocolate chips)
-2-3 c chopped walnuts

Bake about 10 minutes at 375*F. This dough freezes well.

Sourdought English Muffins and Pancakes

When I went to Washington this summer, my friend Shelley gave me a sourdough starter that is a legacy of her late Mother. While we were in a cabin at the ocean, she made us scrumptious sourdough pancakes and then sent the starter home with me. A couple months and a thousand or so miles later (which makes me wonder how far these things traveled in the days of old), I pulled it out of the refrigerator and "refreshed" it. I have always wanted to try sourdough, but had not gotten that brave. Even after this foray, I am still feeling like I don't know much of anything! But, it was fun and a little exciting to be trying something new in the kitchen.


In addition to the gift of the starter, I was prompted by my recent purchase of Cooking and Baking With Fresh Ground Flour by Christine Downs, reportedly the importer of the Family Grain Mill. Ironically this last weekend I was given the gift of a hand family grain mill along with a flaker (for making oatmeal etc) by one of my scrapbooking friends who had great intentions but not enough time to follow through. It has no instructions so I am going to track those down. Anyway, on page 61, I was enticed by the recipe for Sourdough English Muffins.

Here are the muffins after rising. The powdery stuff is my attempt at making cornmeal, which ended up being more like corn flour! I followed the recipe, except I omitted the vital wheat gluten. It is such a highly processed food, even more so than white flour, that I have just never bothered with it. My end product did not, in my opinion, suffer for it!

I cooked them in two pans so that I would not be standing all night (since I'm not supposed to stand at all!). Surprisingly, the ones cooked in my only Teflon pan, cooked the best!

The ones in the cast iron did fine though. I only have one large iron skillet.

Here you can see them after turning. I was so proud of the one in the center - it looked just like a store bought muffin!

Here are the final products. Some got a little brown on the outside but are fine to eat. They are very light and fluffy texture and honestly taste better than any store bought whole wheat English muffins I have tried. The sourdough taste is mild, but present. Hubby said they are definitely a "do-over"! That's his way of saying that we can keep them in the repertoire!

Afterwards, I made myself one large pancake with the whole wheat and corn flours I had left. First I made a small one and it tasted horrible. Oh yeah, salt! So, I added salt, but it was still thick shoe leather texture. DUH! I had forgotten to put in baking soda when I mixed up the pancake batter! This was my final effort and it tasted great with black berry jam on it! Not the greatest dinner, I suppose, but there were a lot of nutrients in that fresh ground flour. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! :o)

Spelt Buttermilk Biscuits

This one was a fun experiment because it came out really good! The warm ones were the best. They got a little denser when they were cold, but the recipe could be halved if you have a smaller family. In spite of the dark color that comes from spelt flour, these were light and fluffy and just as nice as when I made them with white all purpose flour. I have made them with other combinations of grain flour and they were really dense, not fluffy like these. Of course when I say fluffy they are not going to be like canned biscuits or ultra processed white biscuits, but they were pretty good. My son liked them better than the ones made with white flour which happies me since he is such a picky eater.

The recipe is adapted form Fannie Farmer Cookbook's Buttermilk Biscuits.

Spelt Buttermilk Biscuits

Preheat oven to 425*

4 cups Spelt flour (if fresh ground, use four heaping cups of flour)

1 t Salt

4 t BP

1 T Honey

1 t Baking Soda

1 c Shortening (I use Spectrum palm shortening)

1 - 1 1/3 c Buttermilk

Mix dry ingredients, honey and shortening until crumbly. (I used a mixer but could be done by hand) Add buttermilk until a wet dough ball forms. Drop by spoon fulls onto baking sheet. Makes 9 large biscuits (about English muffin size) or 12-20 smaller biscuits. Bake for 15-25 minutes depending on size. Eat warm!

Healthy-ish Banana Bread

Every family has its own recipes which are "sacred". In my family, it is the Banana Bread Recipe of my Aunt Grace. Her banana bread is dense but very moist and is not like the cake type of breads that most people make. It was a staple at all our family get togethers, especially Thanksgiving and Mother's Day which were generally spent at Grandma Hopkins' house. Hubby loves it warm with butter melted on top. I like mine cold from the fridge with cold butter spread on top! We still love each other! :o)

About Thanksgiving time I decided to try adding half store bought ww flour to make Banana Bread without telling anyone. I did and noone could tell the difference! Hubby was surprised when I told him. So, I got to thinking, what if I went all whole wheat? Then it dawned on me, why not substitute honey for the sugar? Well, the results today were pretty good. It doesn't hold together quite as well as the recipe made with at least half white flour, but it tastes good. What I find when I adapt some recipes is that it doesn't taste the same, but it doesn't taste bad either. I want to make whole foods that my family will enjoy - if they are not enjoying their nutrition at all, then what is the point? They'll just leave what I teach them as soon as they can! So, I'm trying to find things that will satisfy certain food cravings without making us sick and fat.


I loved being able to use the Vita Mix to mix up all the wet ingredients and blend in my cyrstalized honey, so that it was all smooth without grit!

This is what the batter looks like going in. It's a lumpy pancake batter texture.

Here are the loaves coming out. I should have taken them out a couple minutes earlier but had my hands tied when the timer went off and had a brain slip! It's okay, just a little darker crust on the bottom and sides.

It looks all "mooshed" together because we could not wait until it cooled thoroughly. Hubby thought it was a great treat since this is how he likes it anyway. Recipe Follows:

Theresa's Healthy Banana Bread

In a large bowl, mix together:

4 c white whole wheat (pastry) flour

1/2 t salt

1 t BP

2 t Baking Soda

2 c walnuts, chopped (optional or may substitute other "lumpy" ingredients)

In 2nd bowl mix wet ingredients, then add to dry ingredients:

2 eggs

1 1/4 c raw honey

2 c sour milk or Buttermilk (I actually used sour buttermilk)

4 over ripe bananas, squished

Put into 2 Large loaf pans or pans of varying sizes. Bake at 350* for 45-60 minutes depending on loaf size.

©2008 My Journey To Wholeness