Recipe Tips
Tips and Tricks from our personal experiences and musings baking with sprouted flours to help better guide you on your baking adventures
Conversions, Substitutions and other tips
Home baked goods are always a treat, and provide a level of satisfaction that is hard to match from an industrial product. Most people that enjoy cooking, are scared of baking from scratch. However, it is really not that intimidating, and if you are a novice baker, start out with simple recipes, and move forward from there – just experiment, taste and have fun! As a general rule, converting a ‘regular’ recipe to a ‘more healthy’ recipe is really very easy! The basis for making most quick breads, muffins, cakes and cookies is the same, as they are all made from the same ingredients, set apart from the method of cooking and differences in ingredient quantities. So, when you go to convert a recipe, remember that to make a pancake and not a muffin, you have to have the end mix equal the original recipe mix in texture (the amount of liquids have to equal the amount of dry ingredients). Our Sprouted Flours are much drier than regular flours and that all recipes will either need to have less flour OR more liquid added to them. Regular wheat has a water activity level of about 8%.. Our sprouted flours have water activity levels that range from 0.9% to 0.1% moisture.
Sprouted Flour Attributes
Sprouted Spelt. For all recipes, except for cakes, you can use the same amount of Sprouted Spelt Flour where the recipe calls for flour. When making cakes, we have found that you can use LESS Sprouted Spelt Flour than the recipe calls for. For example, Chocolate Zucchini Cake that orginally called for 2 1/2 cups of flour made the cake very dense. But, with 1 3/4 cups flour in the recipe, this resulted in a perfect, light, fluffy, and delicious cake.
Sprouted Wheat: Like Sprouted Spelt Flour, Sprouted Wheat Flour can be used in any recipe in place of other flours. Sprouted Wheat Flour is high in gluten and it will create a slightly lighter product than Sprouted Spelt Flour. It also has a lighter taste than spelt. We prefer to use Sprouted Wheat when we don’t want the taste of the grain competing with the delicate flavors of the product, i.e. pie crusts, pastas with a delicate sauce, or shortbreads.
Sprouted Rye: We use a mid-range rye for our flour, not a light or a dark rye, and sprouting makes it a milder taste than regular rye. You can use the same amount of Sprouted Rye flour that the recipes have called for flour and they have been fine.
Sprouted Kamut: This grain displayed little or no gluten regarding baking properties.. It’s soft and light, but can yield a ‘crumbly’ product. We suggest using it mixed at least 1/2 and 1/2 with other sprouted flours. Half Sprouted Wheat or Sprouted Spelt/Kamut cake is almost like a normal bakery cake. Sprouted kamut has a lightly, nutty flavor and needs a fair amount of flavorings like vanilla to taste like something other than a white cake. Also makes a great thickener for sauces and soups, and good for pie crusts, too.
Sprouted Cream of Spelt Cereal: Coarsely ground sprouted spelt, which is great for making waffles with a rich, chewy texture. Check out the Sprouted Cream of Spelt Waffles in the Pancake, Crepes, Waffles & Fritters section of the Recipe Archives
Interchanging Sugars
Sucanat: organic sugar cane is juiced and the juice is dried. The resulting granules dissolve quickly in liquids and so you can use them just like sugar crystals; but they still retain the vitamins and minerals originally in the sugar cane juice. They have a slight molasses taste.
Rapadura: can be used like sucanat in our recipes.
Granulated maple sugar: can be used it in pretty much the same quantity as the sugar called for in any recipe.
Coconut Sugar: this is the dehydrated sap of coconut palm, and leaves a very subtle coconut flavor. Can be easily substituted for sugar or brown sugar in most recipes.
Date Sugar: slightly sweeter than regular sugar, and imparts a caramel aftertaste.
Liquid sweeteners: (maple syrup, malt syrup, rice syrup, molasses or honey) must balance out this extra liquid addition in the final texture. This can be done through reducing the other liquids in the recipe, like using less milk or yogurt or one less egg…or adding more dry ingredients until the texture is right (remember that this will give you slightly more of your end product). Also, liquid sweeteners tend to make everything a little heavier and the baked texture slightly sticky (esp. the tops of cakes, quick breads and muffins); this is especially so for things like banana, pumpkin or zucchini bread. If you want a lighter texture, use dry sweeteners.
Using Dairy Products and Liquid Additions
All dairy products are basically interchangeable. In place of milk, you can use diluted yogurt instead. And if you want to add more richness, you can use diluted sour cream, cream cheese, blended cottage cheese or diluted kefir cheese. Remember that these cultured or soured dairy products will lower the sweetness of the end product and will require you adding more sweetener to get the same affect.
In most recipes, you can exchange the liquid needed to any other liquid. You can use any juice in a muffin, cake or pancake recipe or even just plain water. But, be aware that dairy products give baked goods a more tender texture; using other liquids may give the end product a more spongy or rubbery texture.
