Small-Batch Flours from Local Grains

For home bakers used to the consistency of supermarket commodities, small-batch flours require some adjustment—just as grass fed beef requires different cooking techniques than its corn-fed counterpart. But the variations in local grains, once you’ve learned to work with them, are precisely what make them worth the trouble…

“It all comes down to grain,” says Chef Dan Barber (of Blue Hill Farm in New York State). “Yes, because  it’s delicious—a whole world of flavor that’s been ignored for the past 50 years—but also because it is a critical missing link in any community’s ability to feed itself.”

“I think that’s one of the greatest things about the grains,” he says. “They change year to year…. It makes them that much more interesting. Each grain is a little bit different in itself.” …

Klaas Martens, who has been growing organic grains with his wife, Mary-Howell Martens, on their Finger Lakes farm for over a decade, echoes this sentiment. “I think we’ve bought into a false definition of quality with the industrial food system, and that quality is uniformity. With uniformity you bring up the worst, but you also eliminate excellence.”…

But when it comes to Northeast flour, the real miracle is loaves—that is, bread. Area farmers have had success growing soft wheat, the variety traditionally grown here, which is preferred for pastries, pancakes and cookies. In our climate it’s more difficult to grow so-called hard wheat, whose higher levels of gluten give yeasted bread its structure, producing the big air bubbles we’ve come to love in our loaves…