Super chocolaty brownies made with whole barley flour
These brownies are crazy awesome good. Frankly they are soooo chocolaty that it masks most (but not all) of the sweet nuttiness that I love from the whole barley flour. These are really really good, and so quick to prepare that you’ll be able to whip them up and have them in the oven in under five minutes – washing your bowl will take as long as the prep.
This recipe is also a great one to hand to new bakers (of all ages). Unlike cookies which are fun but can be a bit time consuming these brownies are pretty close to instant gratification and there is really little chance of it being screwed up.
If you have younger bakers you might find the mixing a bit of a challenge with a wooden spoon. Pick up some Danish Whisks and the kids will be able to do all of the mixing themselves. Once you’ve got them in your kitchen drawer they will end up being your default mixing tool they are that good.
There are folks who revel in roughing it when they head into the bush. That’s not me. Now don’t get me wrong, I love the outdoors and think glamping is silly but while I am perfectly capable of living rough if need be, if I can make things more comfortable for myself I will. That includes food.
Cinnamon buns cooked over the campfire
Much of my camping is done by canoe – so even if there are portages the size and weight constraints aren’t that rigorous – which makes more diverse outdoor fare reasonable. These campfire cinnamon buns are a case in point. Having these with coffee in the morning while looking out over still waters with the mist rising off them is a pretty awesome experience.
Now most would expect to need a stove to bake cinnamon buns – or at the very least a reflector oven, but these are cooked in much the same way as you would the english muffins we already covered – as griddle cakes in a frypan – which makes them much more reasonable to produce.
Dough rolled out ready for cinnamon and sugar
What I prefer to do is use an extra large ziplock bag – add flour – I prefer to use the whole wheat ground on the diy grain mill – add a pinch of salt, some yeast, a bit of sugar and then add water until you have a sticky dough. You can do an ok job of roughly kneading the dough while it remains in the ziplock bag. Since I generally do this step just before turning in for the night – I generally don’t do a second knead. Make sure the air is out of the bag and don’t get carried away and make too big a batch, and place the bag in a warm spot overnight.
Something spectacular to wake up to
In the morning open the bag, punch down the dough, pull out dough balls, flour roll out, and sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on the dough and then roll up and cut as you would with regular cinnamon rolls. Allow them to rise and then place them in an greased frying pan. I often just use a couple of pieces of bacon to provide the fat needed to render the surface non stick.
Cook over low heat on one side for a bit, then flip and cook on the other. Alternate sides until the buns are cooked through. Allow to cool slightly and serve with a bit of butter if you have any along. Enjoy.
Bread Dough rolled out, oiled and sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon and ready to be rolled up
It’s telling that a whole franchise – and a rather successful on at that – can be built on one very narrow product – cinnamon buns. I guess, upon further reflection I guess that isn’t so unique, but it may be a bit telling as to how easily many of us part with cash that we’d be willing to pay such a premium for what is really a very simple bread product.
If you haven’t made cinnamon buns at home you should. The process is really very simple – and the bread machine takes all of the real effort out of the process.
This is one more case where silicon bakeware really shines. Cleanup of any sugary “leakage” from the buns is easily snacked on or washed up.
Cinnamon buns ready for second rise before going in the oven
For soft sided buns put the dough into a pan so that when doubled in bulk the buns contact each other, if you want harder outer crusts place them on a baking sheet with separation between the buns.
I always find it cool how changing even a single variable can significantly change the outcome. That is as true in baking as it is in many other domains.
English muffins are a great example of this. They are just regular bread dough that is cooked on the griddle rather than baked in the oven… simple enough right – but would you have guessed how easy their preparation was before now?
Certainly they are sold in stores at a premium – but you can turn them out easily at home.
Whole wheat English Muffins in the frypan
English muffin rings are certainly not necessary, and personally I would never have purchased them. Rather I have two dozen that I made up from salvaged stainless steel sheets. They are nice in that they give uniform muffins, but the real reason I enjoy using them is that I get a kick out of having fabricated them myself from scrap.
Kids and cookies – a great way to get them hooked on baking
The “Bigger is better” school of thought isn’t always true, but at least where cookies and kids are concerned it carries a pretty strong appeal.
While a lot of cookie recipes have difficulty scaling up from the average to the jumbo to the ginormous this one is perfect for building the bigger cookie – so big in fact that you should be using pizza pans to bake them in.
Wedges of the giant whole grain cookie – before gobbling
This basic cookies is great on its own – or toss in a cup or two of chocolate chips, smarties or chopped nuts.
If you’ve got kids who are baking with you this is an easy recipe to get them excited about playing around in the kitchen. If your junior baker has trouble mixing the batter with a wooden spoon consider picking up a danish whisk which speeds mixing while reducing the effort required to a fraction of that a wooden spoon.
Using either whole wheat or whole barley flour is a great option for these cookies. Give them a try with your junior baker or to satiate your own inner junior baker.
These whole wheat sugar cookies can be whipped up in a few minutes, no fuss no muss – and they are great cookies. The combination of the nutmeg with the nuttiness of the whole wheat flour makes for a great combination. In fact, because of this no-nut nuttiness flavor they add great variety to the school lunchbox – and I’m assuming that if you have kids their schools is likely a nut free zone too.
Junior Baker engaged in cookie fabrication!
Quick easy recipes like this are an awesome way to introduce the younger members of the family to the joys of cooking. Get them hooked on this and other skills and you’ll probably give them a better foundation for a happy life than those “nut free” schools.
Combined with letting the kids go from whole grain to whole grain flours on the home built grain mill – that they can take apart and adjust – to cookies that go into their lunches and get offered up to friends and family with pride is such a cool way to demystify food.
I grew up picking blueberries around our cottage in Northern Ontario… and not just picking a sour cream container worth to get enough to sprinkle on cereal in the morning but rather enough to fill freezers with blue bounty to last until the next season.
I still pick large amounts of blueberries, I’ve become pretty practiced and can usually out pick the other members of my family and now I have my kids along with me – learning to be comfortable in the bush, as well as gaining an understanding of the lasting reward that hard work can bring through a year of blueberries in baking.
These blueberry muffins call for whole barley flour – my preferred whole grain flour for sweet quick breads, I find the taste sweeter than whole wheat flour. Given I also like to diversify the grains in my diet this is also a good means of achieving that. But, if you don’t have access to whole barley flour substitute whole wheat.
Enjoy these, and if you can get out picking take some time to sit in the bush, let your hands do the work while your mind gets to ponder over the issues of the day.
Mocha cookies made with barley flour – together with milk!
There are requests, there are pleas and then there are demands. These cookies demand a tall glass of ice cold milk. In fact the dairy farmers should be handing out these very cookies to folk approaching grocery store cashes who don’t have milk in their basket! They are frankly awesome.
Now, some chocolate cookies have loads of oooey gooey good chocolate in them. These by contrast don’t overwhelm you with that taste – but they are addictive!
If you want to have folks rethink baking with whole grain flours – these might just be the way to win them over.
Apple see a lot of use in my home. Our fall harvests from the neighborhood trees in a good year can be substantial. The best of these are kept for fresh eating, seconds are peeled, sliced and dried or frozen for pies, apple braids and the like, those that are a bit softer get transformed into apple sauce that we can, and finally the really bruised ones get turned into apple cider on the homestead press.
Apple Spice Loaf with Barley Flour
So we end up using a lot of apple sauce through the season, and this apple spice loaf is one of my favorite recipes. It’s a quick loaf – so it honestly doesn’t take more than five minutes to mix the ingredients, put it into a silicon loaf pan (which means I don’t even need to take the time to butter and flour the pan) making it a cinch to pull together. In spite of being so easy – it is a lovely loaf the blend of apple and spices is lovely. While the loaf is a great accompaniment for a nice cup of tea or coffee it most often serves as a bread substitute in our lunches, adding variety to our brown bags. Made with whole grain flour – and I usually use whole barley flour for quick breads – it fills you up and keeps you satiated.
I think this is a pretty good example of better living today – you get a great rich filling and wholesome loaf, add diversity to your meals that sees you content to skip the cafeteria line for lunches and uses some of the bounty around us. It is also a great example of how easily all this can be pulled together. It honestly takes more time to wash the bowl than it does to prepare the batter and slide it into the oven.
Of course, you don’t need to use your own apple sauce or even flour you’ve produced at home to get a very nice product. So take five minutes to make this apple spice loaf and add some great baking to your lunches.
Whole barley flour works wonderfully in a host of baked goods – in most cases I prefer it to whole wheat flour for cookies and sweet quick breads – and so does my junior baker.
You might have a bit of trouble finding whole barley flour unless you mill it yourself, but that is one of the advantages of having your own mill.
Barley flour peanut butter cookies ready for the oven
While I know that these could be scaled down to bite sized if you engage the junior baker the cookies are always going to be jumbo sized. It’s not every cookie that will scale up nicely – but these do just fine, and you can adjust the baking time to suit the level of chewiness you desire – from wonderfully chewy to crisp.
Cookies are probably the greatest reason to get and use silicon baking sheets – they practically banish cookies with burnt bottoms, so don’t waste your ingredients or effort by forgoing its acquisition.
So, whether you have a junior baker or not these are great PB cookies so make yourself a batch.
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