Holiday Sugar Cookies

Thanksgiving and Christmas 2022 are on the horizon. Thanksgiving is my favorite celebrated holiday of all. It is a time to reflect and give thanks to God for all of His unspeakable gifts bestowed upon us in one year. Thanksgiving 2021 brought the curse of Covid to our family. It did a lot of damage and its effects lasted halfway through 2022. By God’s abundant grace and mercy I was not consumed and the rest of our family weathered the storm with minimal effects. To say I am so humbly thankful to be among the living is an understatement and once again to have the privilege to celebrate another Thanksgiving is truly a gift from God.

Einkorn is a bit of a challenge when it comes to sugar cookies, but this tweaked recipe from Jovial Foods is the best one I have found to work with. The cookies hold up well to decorating but the key is to not over bake and chill your dough.

Ingredients

  • 2 1/4 cups (270 g) All Purpose Einkorn Flour

  • 1 teaspoon baking powder

  • 1/8 teaspoon salt

  • 8 tablespoons (1113g) unsalted butter, at room temperature

  • 3/4 cup (150 g) sugar

  • 1 large egg

  • 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (optional)

  • 1 tablespoon whole milk yogurt

Instructions

  1. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Cream together the butter and sugar for 2 minutes in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment on medium-low speed, stopping a few times to scrape down the sides.

  3. Add the egg, yogurt and vanilla and mix for 1 minute until thoroughly combined.

  4. Add the flour mixture and mix on low speed until just incorporated, scraping down the sides. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill the dough for 1 hour.

  5. Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

  6. Working with half of the dough at a time, very lightly dust a piece of parchment paper and the rolling pin with flour. Roll the dough to ¼ inch thick. Cut out the cookies and place on the baking sheet 1 inch apart. Gather the scraps into a ball, chill for at least 10 minutes, then roll out again.

  7. Bake for 10 minutes until lightly golden around the edges. Cool on the sheet for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack before decorating.

  8. The cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Original recipe from Carla Bartolucci’s book Einkorn. I omited the almond flour because it was optional and I found the cookies turned out better.

Happy Reformation Day!!

Today we celebrate the day which marked the beginning of the Protestant Reformation for the Christian Church worldwide. On October 31, 1517 Martin Luther, a Monk and a Scholar penned his “95 Theses” and nailed it to the door of the Church in Wittenberg. What exactly is the Protestant Reformation. Well Ligioner has a good article explaining the celebration in simple terms. You can read it here:

https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/what-is-reformation-day

So today we celebrate the Light of the Gospel and rejoice in the absolute transforming miracle of the Blood of Jesus Christ on my soul for my sins. Truly we have a lot to celebrate and today we take the time to reflect on the Blessings that are God given and celebrate Martin Luther and those brave men and women who dared to challenge the false teaching and false authority that has been given (by their own corrupt systems) over the souls of men and women worldwide! Rejoice!

Ancient Grain Einkorn 101

Greetings farm followers! I will be (Lord willing) hosting a class in my farm kitchen on November 12, 2022 from 10:00 am - 2:00 pm. In this class I will do my best to instruct and demonstrate how to make a 2 hour non dairy loaf of Einkorn sandwich bread. I will also educate on the art of keeping a sourdough starter and the very important role it play when working with ancient grains like Einkorn. So if anyone can make please come. The cost is minimal just to cover my supplies. $25 and you can pay on the day of the class by cash, check, debit or credit.

A case for Einkorn

Greetings Farm followers! A nice cool Fall morning here in the Upstate of SC. Several weeks ago I was a vendor at a Market in the sweet little town of Walhalla, SC. It was another total sell out of product which by God’s blessing is usually the case however what totally surprised me was that many folks still have never heard of Einkorn. Even sadder was the fact that folks who did discover this great Ancient wheat found little help working with this amazing grain. Now there are quite a few food bloggers using Einkorn but few actually give instructional information that novice (folks new to Einkorn) bakers can grasp. The late Carla Bartolucci really was about the only trusted source for folks to really work with Einkorn. Now I have read Eli Rogoso’s book on Restoring Heritage Grains and it is a jam packed book filled with great information especially about Einkorn. Her work at the Heritage Grain Conservancy is stellar. However, when it comes to really handling Einkorn that is a total other story. So I want to make a case for Einkorn so that hopefully others will be encouraged and challenged to give it a try.

Einkorn is the oldest known wheat in the world. It has NEVER been hybridized in a lab. It has 14 chromosomes compared to conventional wheat’s 42. Those numbers truly represent how far wheat has been hybridized and how the human body reacts to that. This link from https://www.einkorn.com gives plenty of the necessary research to understand what makes Einkorn better nutritionally.

https://www.einkorn.com/types-of-wheat-nutritional-content-health-benefits-comparison/

From my own personal experience working with Einkorn for well over six years now it does comes with a serious learning curve. I had to pretty much unlearn baking bread when I switched to Einkorn but it is totally worth it. The products I make are of the utmost excellent quality. The taste of Einkorn gives real depth of flavor without overwhelming the end product like cookies, cakes or brownies. Folks who have eaten my products with “gluten sensitivities” tolerate Einkorn without incident. Einkorn is just simply different. The gluten and gliadin react much differently than conventional wheat and do not cause the reaction in most folks that conventional wheat does. Einkorn is NOT “gluten free” but the way it acts in the body is different.

My daughter-in-law recently had a battery of tests to determine if she had Celiac’s Disease. In the test results it showed that she was not reactive to Spelt. But none of the Ancient grains were included in this test. Spelt come generations after Einkorn and it is closely related more to modern wheat so it works well when transitioning from conventional recipes. It is lower in nutritional value but it is still one of the rare grains being a complete protein. I truly believe she will one day again enjoy Einkorn at my table. Being a Nurse for well over 30 years I would never jeopardize anyone’s health to prove a point. That being said I believe Einkorn does not deserve to be looped together with modern, conventional chemically poisoned wheat. I believe God gave us this wheat to nourish our bodies and what we have done to our food supply is truthfully shameful. Choosing materialism over health and nutrition has gotten us to a place of total body failure or misery for others. Nutritious food should be our number one priority. The vast numbers of folks who are currently diagnosed as “mentally ill or unstable” have serious nutritional deficiencies. They do not need another prescription they need better food. Food can change mood!

Now I bake almost exclusively with organic ingredients as much as I can. When baking anything I use two forms of Einkorn. Many recipes are baked with an all-purpose Einkorn flour which has been bolted to high extraction levels. Secondly I grind my own Einkorn wheat berries to make whole grain products or even slightly bolted whole grain products. I keep a sourdough starter at ALL times. I feed my starter daily since I pretty much bake daily here on the farm.Sourdough in itself is a whole other topic but they go hand and hand with ancient grain baking in my opinion.

So hopefully I have made a case for Einkorn. I truly believe Einkorn is a gift for better health. I will be adding some classes to help folks learn how to handle Einkorn. The fees for my time will be minimal but I need to charge for supplies in order to give folks a better understanding on how Einkorn can be integrated into their lives for better health.

Einkorn Spiced Apple, Walnut & Raisin muffins

SPICED APPLE WALNUT & RAISIN EINKORN MUFFINS

INGREDIENTS

  • 8 tablespoons (113 g) unsalted butter

  • ½ cup (105 g) brown sugar

  • 1½ teaspoons cinnamon, plus ½ teaspoon for dusting

  • ⅛ teaspoon nutmeg

  • ⅛ teaspoon cardamom

  • 2 tart apples, peeled and cut into ¼-inch dices

  • ⅓ cup (50 g) seedless raisins

  • ¼ cup (30 g) walnuts, chopped

  • zest of 1 orange

  • 2 large eggs

  • ¼ cup (50 g) sugar, plus 2 tablespoons for dusting

  • 2 teaspoons baking powder

  • ½ teaspoon baking soda

  • ½ teaspoon fine sea salt

  • 1 cup (240 g) buttermilk or kefir, or 1 cup (240 g) milk or non-dairy milk soured with 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a muffin tin with paper liners.

  2. Heat butter, brown sugar and spices in a large skillet on medium-low heat until the mixture begins to bubble. Add the apples and cook for 5 minutes. Add the raisins, walnuts and orange zest. Set aside to cool.

  3. In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a wire whip, beat eggs and ¼ cup (50g) of sugar on high speed for 5 minutes until the mixtures is very thick and creamy.

  4. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.

  5. Fold ⅓ of the flour mixture into the eggs until most of the dry flour is absorbed, then fold in half of the buttermilk. Continue with ⅓ flour, ½ buttermilk, and the remaining flour.

  6. Fold in the apple mixture from the skillet until well-combined.

  7. Spoon the batter evenly into the muffin cups.

  8. Mix the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar and ½ teaspoon of cinnamon in a small bowl. Dust the tops of the muffins with the cinnamon sugar.

  9. Place the muffins in the oven, then lower the oven heat to 375°F. Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

  10. Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then remove from the pan and cool completely. The muffins can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

    Recipe courtesy of Jovialfoods.com