Einkorn Wheat

Einkorn Wheat

It's the new wheat....errrr.....rather, the old wheat! But it's coming back into "style." It seems our current wheat has been drastically modified from its original version. You can read more about it here. I am currently reading Wheat Belly by Dr. William Davis. It's pretty eye-opening. In it, he mentions Eli Rogosa from growseed.org. So I looked over the website and decided to email her. The farm is in Western Massachusetts, so I'm not too far! I will likely visit sometime in the summer (and purchase more Einkorn). I got some of her Einkorn wheat in the mail. Here's what it looks like:

I wasn't sure what I would use it for, but I decided to start with a pizza since that doesn't need to rise a ton. I used it in my pizza recipe. As it turns out, I probably should have done a bit more research. As the machine was kneading the dough, it looked super sticky. I thought that was the end, and I wasn't sure how I'd fix it. I ended up adding maybe another 1/2 cup to 1 cup of the wheat during the kneading process. I think with this wheat, you have to use a lot less liquid, or a lot more wheat. I will adjust properly next time. This is what it first looked like:

At the end it looked much better, but still a bit sticky:

I formed it into the usual two balls for two pizzas. Usually I don't let it rise again, but here I did, because I don't think this kind of wheat rises quite as much as today's wheat (less gluten!):

Before:

After a rise:

I rolled it out, but I couldn't roll it too thinly, as it was just breaking apart. So I made a slightly smaller pizza and put it onto the pan, and then tried to stretch it out more with my hands (directly on the pan). That seemed to work. Though during the baking process, some of it cracked open a bit and sauce fell through and made the dough stick to the pan quite a bit. I don't use oil, but if you spray the pan first, it probably won't stick at all. I may have to, for this particular wheat. But it turned out great...very tasty! With some adjustments, I will definitely make pizza again with it. Next try...a loaf of bread.

Delicious :)  

You can purchase Einkorn and other ancient wheats (bread and pasta too) from Eli at http://growseed.org/einkorn.html. I believe you can also purchase seeds if you'd like to grow your own! I also would love to try her sourdough bread :)

Have you tried Einkorn wheat or any other ancient wheats?

Eat smart,

T.