*raises hand*
Raise your hand if you like fresh baked homemade bread more than store bought bread.
*jumps up and down and waves both hands in the air*
Really though, is there anything better than warm bread fresh out of the oven? The smell, the flavor, and the texture is just the best.
We do buy sandwich bread and buns from the store, but I also really enjoy baking my own bread. One evening during dinner we were talking about bread and wondered what the price difference was between my fresh homemade sandwich bread and the sandwich bread we buy from the store. Noah hunted down a pen and pad of paper and started figuring up the cost of the ingredients I use to bake bread at home. (My husband is a numbers man.) The sandwich bread we buy from Aldi is 89 cents. The bread I make at home came to less than 60 cents a loaf.
Looking at the numbers we decided, "Why not just make our own sandwich bread from now on?" It's cheaper and tastier than the store bought bread. It just made sense.
A little while later, Noah was researching the price of flour, trying to see if he could find flour for even cheaper than what we pay at Aldi, and came upon the world of home ground, freshly milled flour. REAL whole grain flour.
"Have you heard of grinding your own flour?" he asked me.
"Um, no, I've never thought of that. Is there such a thing?"
After much research, the supposed nutritional benefits of home ground flour over store bought flour were enough for me to request ten different books from the library about whole grain bread, fresh milled flour, and sourdough.
We bought a small amount of hard red winter wheat berries from a nearby health food store and I conducted a bread experiment the next day.
During my previous bread baking adventures, I had come across only one truly reliable yeast bread recipe that turned out nicely every time I made it. I used this recipe as my test.
I ground up the wheat berries in our little coffee grinder (which generally isn't recommended because it doesn't grind it fine enough, but it's what we had at the time) and made two loaves of bread. One with the home ground flour, the other with the store bought all-purpose flour I used all the time. I knew the whole grain loaf was going behave differently than the white loaf and I figured this basic recipe would be a good baseline. I wanted to know if I was going to have to change my bread baking tactics in order to get soft, tasty sandwich bread with home ground flour.
The whole wheat loaf was of course more dense than the white loaf, but not in an "I feel like I'm eating a brick" kind of way. It felt hearty, made great toast, and somehow tasted sweeter than the white bread even though both loaves had the same amount of added sugar. I also thought the white loaf tasted a bit bitter compared to the whole wheat loaf. We decided we liked the whole wheat bread, but wondered if I would be able to make softer, more "sandwichy" bread with freshly milled flour (not to mention biscuits, cornbread, or my beloved cinnamon rolls).
More research ensued. I picked up my requested books from the library and we were convinced even more that it would be a good idea to try grinding our own flour. It was mostly the health benefits that made us so interested in this new world of flour. (I'll be sure to leave a link at the bottom for a companion post containing books and online articles about bread and freshly ground flour.)
From everything I have read, I should be able to make soft bread with real whole grain flour. I might have to make it a little differently than my trusty yeast bread recipe, but it should be possible.
Noah found a bulk foods place not too far away where we could buy whole grains. We read all about how to properly store them so they wouldn't spoil or become infested with bugs. We ended up buying rolled oats, steel cut oats, and peanuts from the food store too. (We have recently started making our own peanut butter.)
Then we went online to buy the grain mill we had decided on and it was out of stock until early April. The grain mill is what made us hesitate the most in deciding to grind our own flour. A good one is expensive. Like, more than we spent on my Kitchen Aid stand mixer, which is probably the most expensive small appliance we own.
The grain mill did finally arrive and I have enjoyed experimenting with fresh milled flour for more than just sandwich bread. I will be sure to share my adventures with y'all and any tips or successful recipes I come across.
If this blog post has made you curious to learn more, click over to this companion post listing online articles and books I've perused on the subjects of fresh milled flour and just baking bread in general.
Happy baking, y'all!
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