Alternative Baker

by Alanna Taylor-Tobin

  TEFF FLOUR

  AKA: Brown teff flour

  Flavor profile: Warm, sweet, malty, milk chocolate, caramel, butterscotch

  Consistency: Fairly soft and starchy with a bit of grainy texture

  Brand tested: Bob’s Red Mill (Note: This flour is not produced in a dedicated GF facility; if you or your guests are sensitive to trace amounts of gluten, you’ll want to source a certified GF variety of teff flour.)

  Weight per cup: 4½ ounces (130 g)

  Find it: With other alternative flours and/or the bulk section at health food stores

  Store it: Airtight at room temperature in a cool, dry, dark place (such as a kitchen cupboard) for up to 3 months, or refrigerated airtight for up to 1 year

  Use it: Teff flour’s warm, earthy flavor pairs well with chocolate, coffee, apples, pears, figs, spices (especially cinnamon and nutmeg), nuts, bananas, maple, caramel, brown sugar and spirits. Stone fruit such as peaches, plums and cherries contrast nicely with teff.

  Health benefits: Very high in iron (nine times more than wheat) and calcium (five times more than other cereal grains), vitamin C (which is rare in grains) and protein (a 2-ounce [56-g] serving of teff has the same amount of protein as an extra-large egg).

  The word teff means “lost” in Amharic, named for the tiny grains’ ability to disappear when dropped. Teff was almost lost to the world for good when, in the 1970s, Ethiopia’s socialist military government forced farmers to switch over to more profitable wheat production. As teff was grown in an isolated region of Ethiopia and hadn’t yet made it to other parts of the world, teff might have disappeared forever if it hadn’t been for an American aid worker who, having fallen in love with Ethiopian cuisine, brought the grain back to his home in Idaho, which boasted favorable growing conditions for this ancient grain. To the joy of many Ethiopian and Eritrean ex-pats, teff found a new home, and The Teff Company was born, spreading the deliciosity of teff throughout the United States.

  EARTHY FLOURS FROM TOP: BUCKWHEAT, CHESTNUT, TEFF, MESQUITE

  With a rising interest in alternative grains, teff is gaining popularity, even being called The West’s Latest Superfood Crush (Vice.com, 2014). The world’s smallest grain boasts some of the biggest nutritional benefits, including high levels of protein, iron, calcium and vitamin C. Teff flour is ground from these tiny grains, each the size of a poppy seed and weighing in at 1 gram per 3,000 grains. It is most traditionally used to make injera, a fermented Ethiopian flatbread. Of the many varieties of teff, the two most common are brown and ivory, with brown being the most readily available in the United States. Bob’s Red Mill teff flour is ground fairly fine, with a bit of texture still, and doesn’t clump. The Teff Company, which I found in bulk at my co-op and can be ordered online, makes brown and ivory teff flours with a powder-fine consistency that bakes up super smooth. Since this brand is harder to find, however, recipes in this book have been formulated to work with Bob’s coarser grind. The flour is a warm, medium brown hue and if you stick your nose in the bag and inhale, you’ll be rewarded with the scents of malt, milk chocolate, baking bread and earth.

  It took me years to give teff flour a try in sweets, linked as it was in my mind to super-savory Ethiopian curries. But once I did, I was hooked. With its warm notes of caramel and malted chocolate milk, teff flour was made for desserts. In this book, it gives oatmeal cookies an extra layer of earthy flavor, blends with roasted bananas and brown sugar in scones, forms craggy biscuits for peach cobbler, bakes into chocolate cherry pots and makes a flaky pie pastry base for hazelnut frangipane and plums.

  CHESTNUT FLOUR

  AKA: Chestnut flour powder, Italian chestnut flour, farina di castagne (not to be confused with water chestnut flour, which comes from a completely different plant and is not covered in this book)

  Flavor profile: Sweet, nutty, sometimes slightly smoky with hints of bitterness

  Consistency: Soft, starchy, cakey, tendency to clump

  Weight per cup: 3¾ ounces (105 g)

  Brands tested: Calleris and Ladd Hill

  Find it: In Italian specialty shops or with other alternative flours in health food stores and upscale grocers. It tends to show up in the United States around the fall and winter holidays. If you can’t find it locally, it can be ordered online (see Sources).

  Store it: Refrigerated airtight for up to 1 year

  Use it: Darker chestnut flour such as Calleris has an earthier flavor that pairs well with stone fruit, figs, apples, pears, other nuts, chocolate, coffee, rum and other brown spirits, brown butter, vanilla and caramel. Its flavor can be assertive on its own, so I recommend using only 50 percent chestnut flour in recipes that call for a high proportion of flour. Lighter flour, such as Ladd Hill, has a milder flavor that is closer to all-purpose flour; it pairs well with nearly any baking ingredients and fruits and can be used in baking up to 100 percent.

  Health benefits: Low in fat and rich in vitamins (especially vitamin C, E and B-complex), minerals (iron, calcium, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, zinc and potassium) and dietary fiber. Chestnut flour also contains high-quality protein with essential amino acids.

  Chestnut flour is a rare find in the United States these days, but it was a staple food throughout both Europe and North America since ancient times, developing simultaneously on both continents. It featured in stews and preserves, and was often ground into a starchy flour and baked into bread. Chestnuts were particularly necessary in regions where other starchy foods (such as wheat and potatoes) wouldn’t grow, such as in the mountainous regions of southern Europe. Chestnut flour fell out of favor due to a chestnut blight in the early 1900s in the United States, while Europeans grew to loathe it during wartimes, where it gained a reputation as peasant food. (This is all rather hilarious to any bakers who have shelled out for chestnut flour today; it’s the most costly flour used in this book!)

  Thankfully, modern cooks and bakers are rediscovering the positive qualities of chestnut flour, of which there are many. Chestnut flour is made by grinding either raw or roasted, dried chestnuts into a powder; most of the world’s chestnut flour is produced in Italy (hence the high price tag and spotty availability in North America), but it’s becoming more widely cultivated in the United States. The soft, starchy flour is low in fat, sweet in flavor and bakes up smooth and tender. With a similar starch content to wheat flour but without the gluten, it makes an excellent addition to all manner of baked goods. The Italian brand Calleris is the one I’ve found most commonly in Northern California at Italian markets as well as health food stores and specialty grocers, and I’ve used it in the recipes in this book. It has a deep, tan color and slightly smoky flavor that can be delicious in small quantities but overpowering if used too freely. Ladd Hill is a harder-to-find brand made in Oregon’s Willamette Valley from organic, unroasted chestnuts. This bone-white flour has a sweet, mild flavor without a trace of smoke or bitterness and can be used mostly interchangeably with the roasted flour.

  Chestnut flour is fairly perishable, so do be sure to store it in the refrigerator. It tends to clump, so be sure to strain or sift when called for. It adds a warm, intriguing flavor and cakelike texture to baked goods, be it chocolate chip cookies laced with brown butter and milk chocolate, financiers topped with plums, apple tart covered in salty caramel or fig-stuffed scones.

  MESQUITE FLOUR

  AKA: Mesquite powder, raw mesquite powder

  Flavor profile: Sweet, wild, warm, baked earth, cinnamon, vanilla, toasted nuts, graham crackers

  Consistency: Powdery and fine, cakey, delicate, tends to clump

  Weight per cup: 4¼ ounces (120 g)

  Brand tested: Zócalo Gourmet Mesquite Algarroba Organic Flour

  Find it: With other GF flours and/or the raw foods section at health food stores and upscale grocers

  Store it: Airtight at room temperature in a cool, dry, dark place (such as a kitchen cupboard) for up to 3 months, or refrigerated airtight for up to 1 year

  Use it: Pairs well wit
h ginger, cinnamon, apples, bananas, sweet potato, winter squash, caramel, chocolate, nuts (especially walnuts and pecans), berries, stone fruit, maple, brown sugar. Because of its strong flavor, you won’t want to use more than 50 percent mesquite flour in flour-heavy recipes. Mesquite can also be used more as a spice or sweetener in smaller quantities.

  Health benefits: Despite its sweet flavor, mesquite flour has a low glycemic index and high protein (13 percent) and fiber content (25 percent). It contains only 3 percent fat. It is rich in calcium, magnesium and lysine, an amino acid said to prevent canker sores. It has proven effective in controlling diabetes as the soluble fiber from the seeds and pods forms a gel that slows nutrient absorption by three to four times after ingesting (4–6 hours rather than 1–2 hours). This slower digestion prevents the blood sugar spikes that result from eating other carbohydrates.

  Mesquite flour always reminds me of Red Rock Canyon in Southern California in color and aroma: warm, baked earth with notes of cinnamon and a dusty reddish beige hue. I’ve heard it described as tasting like warm gingerbread or freshly baked bread.

  Drought-tolerant mesquite trees are native to the southern United States and grow in arid regions such as Arizona and Mexico. The algarrobo variety grows in forests along the coast of northern Peru, where trees can reach upward of 100 feet tall. Mesquite’s edible seedpods look a little like shelling beans. The tree’s reddish brown wood was used to build Spanish ships; now, the trees are the most expensive to harvest in the United States and are used only in high-end furniture. The wood chips, which are mesquite’s claim to fame, are sold for smoking and grilling foods, a practice used by Native Americans for ages, but only embraced by Western chefs since the 1980s. Native desert dwellers subsisted largely on mesquite flour, using stones to grind the seeds and pods by hand and often mixing this meal with corn. Today, the whole pods are dried and ground into mesquite flour, sometimes called raw mesquite powder. Despite its low glycemic index, this flour is naturally quite sweet and is sometimes used as a replacement for sugar. The pods can be boiled to make mesquite syrup, which can be ordered online.

  Mesquite flour is embraced today for its beguiling flavor and health benefits, thanks in part to Heidi Swanson, who published a mesquite chocolate chip cookie recipe in her book Super Natural Cooking in 2007. This was my first experience with the flour, which I found at my co-op, and it baked up into the most flavorful chocolate chip cookies I’d ever tasted. Other common recipes include mesquite pancakes, quick breads, cornbread and even flan. Mesquite flour’s warm flavor pairs especially well with earth and spice. It has a powder-fine texture that needs sifting to oust clumps, and it bakes up soft and smooth. Its high sugar content makes it prone to burning, so take care when baking with mesquite to not overcook. In this book, it complements little chocolate cakes topped with whipped crème fraîche and berries, forms a shortbread-like crust for banana cream tart and sweet potato cheesecake bites and adds oomph to gingersnaps and chewy ginger cookies.

  GRASSY

  These flours are characterized by a vegetal flavor, sometimes referred to as “green” or “grassy,” which can range from freshly mowed lawn to straw or hay.

  AMARANTH FLOUR

  Flavor profile: Assertive, vegetal, earthy and slightly herbaceous

  Consistency: Fairly fine and starchy with some sandy texture; similar to millet

  Weight per cup: 4½ ounces (130 g)

  Brand tested: Bob’s Red Mill

  Find it: With other alternative flours at health food stores and upscale grocers, or order online

  Store it: Airtight at room temperature in a cool, dry, dark place (such as a kitchen cupboard) for up to 3 months, or refrigerated airtight for up to 1 year

  Use it: I like blending amaranth with milder flours, such as sweet rice and oat, as well as other strong flavors and spices to temper its assertive taste and grainy texture. I don’t recommend using more than 30 percent amaranth in a recipe because of its strong flavor and sandy texture. It pairs nicely with light, bright fruits and spices such as cinnamon, ginger, stone fruit, rhubarb, citrus and berries, as well as vegetables such as carrots, zucchini and winter squash.

  Health benefits: Amaranth has 30 percent more protein than rice or sorghum; it is rich in calcium, iron and the amino acid lysine. Related to quinoa, amaranth is often hailed as a superfood.

  Amaranth may be a nutritional powerhouse, but the flavor and texture can be an acquired taste. The tiny seeds can develop a viscous texture when steamed, making a better porridge than a substitute for fluffy rice or quinoa. Amaranth is a boutique ingredient today, but this was not the case for the ancient Aztecs, who derived 80 percent of their sustenance from the weedlike plant, even using the seeds bound with honey to build statues to their gods, which they used in religious rites (sometimes involving human sacrifice). Amaranth grows quickly and can bear seedpods weighing up to 2 pounds (900 g) and harboring half a million seeds. The pretty plants are often grown as ornamentals, and the burgundy leaves can be cooked like a heartier variety of spinach, to which it is related. Amaranth seed is used culinarily in South and Central America, where it is popped, mixed with honey and formed into cakes or added to a form of hot chocolate.

  I’m still learning to love amaranth, whose flour has a fine texture but intense flavor. One tester described its taste as “musty,” and another wrote that while she and her husband loved the flavor, her kids “noticed” the “earthy” taste of the amaranth. It is not a grain for the faint of heart. Rich dairy can help smooth amaranth’s rough edges and bring out its buttery quality. When tamed by other bold ingredients, amaranth can add an intriguing depth of flavor to baked goods, offsetting sweetness with its bitter undertones. I like amaranth in moderation, baked into peachy scones kissed with cinnamon sugar and in gingered biscuits atop strawberry rhubarb cobbler. If you’re amaranth-curious, try swapping it in for millet in any of the recipes in this book. Just don’t try it with the ancient Aztec secret ingredient—trust me on this one.

  CORN

  AKA: Maize, polenta (yellow corn grits), cornmeal, corn flour

  Flavor profile: Nutty, warm, vegetal, sunny, buttery, bitter undertones

  Consistency: Polenta is the most coarsely ground of the corn products and needs a long cooking time to soften its hard grains. Cornmeal is medium ground and adds nubby texture to cornbread and the like. Corn flour is finely ground and tends to clump; it makes for delicate, tender baked goods that can be brittle if not combined with other stickier flours.

  Weight per cup: Polenta, 5.65 ounces (160 g); cornmeal, 5.65 ounces (160 g); corn flour, 4¼ ounces (120 g)

  Brands tested: Bob’s Red Mill Corn Grits Polenta, Arrowhead Mills Organic Gluten-Free Cornmeal, Bob’s Red Mill Organic Corn Flour

  Find it: Cornmeal and corn flour can be found with other alternative flours at health food stores, and sometimes in bulk. Polenta or corn grits are sometimes sold with other hot cereals if not with GF flours.

  Store it: Airtight at room temperature in a cool, dry, dark place (such as a kitchen cupboard) for up to 3 months, or refrigerated airtight for up to 1 year

  Use it: With light, bright flavors: honey, rhubarb, berries, stone fruit, citrus, vanilla, dairy. Corn has a fairly brittle texture, so don’t use more than 25 percent cornmeal or polenta, or 50 percent corn flour, in most baking recipes.

  Health benefits: High in protein, fiber, iron and phosphorous

  Edible corn comes in many forms, including coarse polenta or grits, cornmeal of various grinds and, the most finely ground, corn flour (not to be confused with cornstarch, which is referred to as corn flour in the UK and Australia). Corn or maize is thought to have been cultivated by the ancient Olmecs and Mayans, spreading to other parts of the Americas since 2500 BCE. European explorers brought it back home in the 1500s and 1600s, and it gained popularity around the globe for its ability to grow in diverse climates. Many varieties of corn are used today in myriad applications, edible and not, including starch, oil, animal feed, fuel an
d even compostable substitutes for plastic. In the kitchen, we pop the kernels into salty snacks, bake the meal into cornbread and use the syrup to sweeten baked goods. Latin cultures make masa harina by soaking the hominy variety of corn in limewater and grinding it into a fine meal for tamales and tortillas.

  GRASSY FLOURS FROM TOP: POLENTA/GRITS, CORNMEAL, CORN FLOUR, MILLET, AMARANTH, SORGHUM

  Polenta is a staple of northern Italy, where it gets a long, slow cook, becoming a savory porridge of sorts. And in the American South, hominy grits get a similar treatment. But corn isn’t all sunshine and flours: many crops have been genetically modified and treated with pesticides, so do take care to buy corn products from small brands, organically grown if possible.

  Corn is a sturdy grain that likes to soak up moisture, and its sunny taste is easy to love and complements a wide variety of foods and flavors. Polenta or corn grits, when baked long and slow with plenty of milk and honey, makes a sublime porridge to top with summer berries. Stone-ground cornmeal makes a nubby cake to sop up juices from blood oranges and a skillet cornbread studded with millet seed and cherries. Finely ground corn flour makes a fluffy topping for berry plum cobbler, and it bakes into pillowy muffins moistened by juicy blueberries.

  MILLET FLOUR

  Flavor profile: Warm, buttery, vegetal, nutty, some bitter notes

  Consistency: Fairly fine and starchy with a bit of sandy texture, slightly clumpy

  Brand tested: Bob’s Red Mill GF Millet Flour

  Weight per cup: 4½ ounces (130 g)

  Find it: With other alternative flours and/or in the bulk section of health food stores and upscale grocers

  Store it: Airtight at room temperature in a cool, dry, dark place (such as a kitchen cupboard) for up to 2 months, or refrigerated airtight for up to 1 year