From Berries to Belly

I got my flour mill/flaker in this week so of course I had to spend some of this weekend trying it out!

Hello Grain Mill!

I also had my second grain share pick-up last weekend. This was supposed to be the last but since we had a pretty wet end of summer, the corn and beans aren't dry yet, so those are yet to come. However, we got a lot this week: 15 lbs of oats, 10 lbs of rye, 10 lbs of barley, and about 10 lbs of popcorn! The popcorn is still drying on my table and won't be ready to pop until the end of the year/beginning of next year.

In the meantime, it does look nice!

I flaked some of the oats while I was there so I could have my oatmeal for breakfasts. I had run out just before the pick up so it was great timing. My mill has a flaker attachment so I will never have to go without oatmeal (the horror!).

I think my biggest challenge for me as far as using the grain is concerned is the rye. I am not a big fan of the flavor of rye. I'm trying to talk a friend of mine into taking it to make whiskey and/or rye beer. But I have to look into that more because neither of us have any idea what is involved in that. But in trying to figure out something to do with the rye, my friend suggested the following recipe, which looked good enough for me to give it a try...and it was worth it!

Rye Honey Cake
1 cup rye flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cloves
2/3 cup honey
2 eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup water

The recipe also calls for 1 tsp orange zest and an optional 1/2 tsp crushed anise seeds; both of which I omitted because I don't really like either of those things.

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease an 8x8 inch baking pan.

Stir together dry ingredients, then add honey, eggs, oil, water. Mix until ingredients are incorporated, but not overmixed. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes, or until a knife comes out clean 1/2-inch from the center. Cool the cake for 10 minutes in the pan and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Rye Honey Cake...Mmmm....

Super easy recipe once you get all the ingredients measured out. It is a very moist cake so the batter is super wet. It tastes really good with some hot tea!

Of course, to get the rye flour, I had to grind up my rye berries. Here's what that looked like:

Rye berries

From berries....

Flour mill in action!

...to flour....to cake....to my belly. Rye never tasted so good. I will have to make a bunch of this to use up all my rye berries though...

Time for some more tea and cake! Happy Halloween!

Simcoe and I wish you a Happy Halloween!