Exciting news for anyone who loves baking: we now stock a range of amazing flours from Ballybrado! Einkorn flour, wholewheat flour, light rye flour… but what actually are they? Let’s dive deeper into these amazing ancient grain flours, where they come from, what makes them special and what and how to best use them!

Einkorn vs Whole Wheat:

Einkorn is one of the world’s earliest cultivated wheat grains. Due to high processing costs and lower yields, einkorn was practically forgotten. However, like other ancient grains, einkorn is making a comeback. It boasts high levels of vitamin A, phosphorus, zinc and fibre. It gives baked goods a mildly nutty, sweet flavour and a slightly golden colour.

Einkorn and also spelt all belong to the wheat family (they are known as ancient grains). These grains have a very low yield, plus, they are hulled grains (which means that a hull has to be removed prior to milling). This makes them very expensive and made them very unattractive to grow, so they were nearly forgotten over the years. This means though that they have not been hybridised like normal wheat and they retain all the nutritional goodness they already had hundreds of years ago.

This makes them nutritionally superior to normal wheat.

Belonging to the wheat family, they all contain gluten. However, the gluten structure is very simple and this means the body can break it down much easier (this also means that their baking qualities are a little bit different to those of normal wheat).

So, in a world where every second person seems to say ‘I can’t have gluten’ (although they are not coeliac), these flours provide a great alternative as their gluten structure can be handled much easier by our digestive system. Add to that a long fermentation process when making bread, and you’ve revolutionised bread.

Einkorn flour is perfectly suited for all baking projects, including sourdough bread, cakes, muffins and pancakes. It may be substituted 1:1 for whole wheat flour in most recipes. Here it is important to note that einkorn dough will require less mixing/kneading and you may need to reduce the amount of liquid in the dough. Sweet doughs benefit from an extra egg-white to ensure a lighter result.

They are all ground from the whole grain in our stone mill – nothing is added, and nothing is taken away.

Whole Light Rye vs Whole Rye:

Whole Light Rye (Lichtkornroggen) is a type of rye that was specifically developed for organic farming methods. It is much lighter in colour and flavour than normal rye (usually grey/blue and quite heavy). The baking qualities and nutritional properties are pretty similar, though. If you were to make bread with only rye flour, you would have to use sourdough as yeast is too weak to lift the heavy dough.

Happy baking!