Here I hope to give you some tools to achieve success when converting your favorite baking (baking soda or powder) recipes to freshly milled flours. In the U.S. we are extra challenged since our recipes are by cups not grams so we cannot just swap flours gram for gram. There are some tips to try when converting our beloved recipes.
- Generally, add about 2-3 Tbs additional freshly milled flour (fmf) per cup of commercial flour. Why? Commercial flour is incredibly compacted during transportation. Even fluffed up it will not likely be as fluffy as your fmf! 20-25% more flour in general is often required.
- Whether cookie dough or muffin batter or whatever, the consistency should be very similar to when you use commercial flours. Be prepared to add a touch more till you achieve that.
- When first adapting a recipe, bake up one batch or half batch to see how that goes and if you need to make a flour addition. You'll know if you need more if your cookies bake up flat or muffins that are too loose-falling apart. This way you'll not waste precious ingredients.
- Chill your cookie dough-about 1 hour will do it. This helps cookies hold their shape better. Along with...
- Turn down your oven to 325ºF from the usual 350ºF when baking cookies. This also helps with holding shape, slowing down the baking process a touch.
- Lastly, make a note of any additions on your recipe so you don't have to learn these lessons over and over!
I also find it helpful to look at a fmf recipe I know works that states both cups and grams to give me a starting point for my recipe. Minor variations between wheat varieties also exists so keep that in mind and make note of which you use for a specific recipe.