Fruit & Vegetable Flours
Fruit & vegetable flours can be made with sweet potatoes, carrots,
beets, beans, peas, onions, sweet corn, blueberries, apples almost any
garden produce. The flavor, vitamins and minerals from the whole fruit
or vegetable can be concentrated into a couple of tablespoons. Only the
water is missing.
All you do is slice the fruit or vegetable very thin, dry it to a crisp
and grind it into a powder. These flours offer many of the advantages of
dried foods but greatly expand the ways to cook with them.
There are several advantages: *A high percentage of vitamins and
minerals survive the drying time ( some estimate 90% ), so you can add
them to other foods for a nutritional boost. *Flours reconstitute much
more evenly than chunks of dried food.
*Fruit and vegetable flours blend smoothly into batters, sauces and dips.
*Flours from high acid fruits and vegetables like tomatoes and apricots
soften the gluten, giving breads a fine, even texture, a softer crumb,
and a greater loaf volume.
*These flours absorb liquid so they fit well into thick, creamy puddings
and custards. *The best fruit and vegetables for flours are those that
can be easily be dried crisp.
The more sugar the food has, the more you’ll have to struggle to remove
the moisture. Damp slices are almost impossible to grind into a powder.
Easy vegetables to start with are spinach, parsley and other leafy
greens, as well as root vegetables like sweet potatoes and carrots.
Apples have a higher sugar content but the many uses for their flour may
encourage you to try them.
Grapes ands plums are difficult; they turn into raisins and prunes and
end up gummy.
Peel apples, eggplants and tomatoes because their skins get rubbery and
won’t grind well. Root vegetables don’t have to be peeled.
Slice the foods as thin as you can. You want to quarter a fruit the size
of an apple , then slice it transversely so you end up with thin chips.
Blanch the vegetables for 30 seconds to a minute. It deactivates the
enzymes which contribute to spoilage and color loss. Blanching is
particularly important because you’ll do all this drying under 140 F,
the temperature that begins to destroy the enzymes. Arrange slices in a
single
layer; they shouldn’t touch each other. Set the dehydrator on “low”,
about 125 F. Let the slices dry until they are brittle, or as close to
brittle as a fruit like an apple can get.
Because of weather changes, uneven slices and varying thickness, it’s
difficult to predict how long something will take to dry. Most foods dry
overnight in an electric dehydrator. A leaf like spinach should dry
until it is brittle. Dried spinach has the texture of a leaf you might
find in autumn under an oak tree but
keeps its dark color. Onion strips dry very rigid, but seem delicate,
like a moth wing. When the slices are dry, store them as soon as they cool.
Don’t grind them.
These flours, especially the sweet ones, don’t store well. Even the
dried slices will take up water, so make an effort to use airtight
containers.
Drying protects food from spoiling because microorganisms can’t find
enough moisture to survive. Keeping
the slices is critical.
Grinding the flour is easy. You can make the flour very easily in a
blender or coffee mill. Make sure the
blender is dry inside, the put a handful of slices in, and cover and
blend at high speed. Leave the blender on for 30 seconds. You may have
to scrape the flakes and fragments back down onto the blades, cover and
blend again.
Grinding goes fast-
you can grind a cup of flour, enough for a loaf of bread, in under 10
minutes. Grind the flour as finely as possible. Some dried slices turn
to powder very easily. Spinach turns to powder the consistency of black
pepper. Don’t worry if other fruit or vegetables don’t make perfectly
uniform powders. Tomatoes acquire the consistency of whole wheat flour
except for about 5% of the flakes. This variation does not affect
cooking with the flour.
Cooking with fruit and vegetable flours requires a pioneer spirit
because you’ll find that few recipes call for them. Try using them first
as seasonings, mixing onion flour into sour cream for a dip, adding
apple flour to pancake batter, heating peach flour with peanut butter
for a sauce or spread. Try to remember that little flour came from a lot
of fruit or vegetables, so the flavor can be very strong.
1 Tbsp of green pepper, for example, can overpower a loaf of bread.
Apple flour has a milder taste and mixes with just about anything. To
adapt yeast bread recipes, add 1/4-1/2 cup of the fruit or vegetable
flour for each cup of flour in the original recipe. You may have to
knead slightly less whole wheat flour into the dough.
~Tomato Bread~
! 1/2 tsp dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
4 tsp honey
1/2 cup milk
2 Tbsp butter
1 egg
1/2 cup tomato flour
1 Tbsp onion flour
1 Tbsp celery flour
1 Tbsp parsley flour
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
Dissolve yeast in water. Stir in 1 tsp honey. Allow to set until bubbly.
Warm the milk enough to melt the butter in it. Add the remaining honey.
Beat the egg in a medium large bowl. Beat in the milk mixture, then the
yeast. Beat in vegetable flours, the half the whole wheat flour.
Gradually stir in and then knead the remaining wheat flour, adding just
enough to work the dough. It will be a little sticky. Knead about 5
minutes. Shape into a ball, oil the dough and place in an oiled bowl.
Allow to rise in a warm place for about 40 minutes or until doubled.
Punch down, knead briefly, and allow to rise again until doubled. Punch
down the dough and roll into a rectangular shape about 8” wide on a
floured board. Make sure you roll the dough in both directions. This
improves the texture. Roll tightly into a loaf, pinch the edges and
place into a buttered 8 x 4” loaf pan. Allow to rise until it doubles,
about 30 minutes or until browned and hollow sounding when tapped. It
will not sound as hollow as breads made without vegetable flours. If
it’s browning too much, cover and top with foil. Remove from pan and
cool on a rack.
Makes 1 loaf.
~Sweet Potato Muffins~
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup oat flour
1 cup dried sweet potato flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 eggs
1/3 cup oil
1 1/4 cups milk
1/3 cup honey
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup coarsely chopped raisins
Combine the whole wheat flour, oat flour, sweet potato flour, baking
soda, baking powder, cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg in a bowl, and mix
well. Combine the eggs, oil, milk and honey, and mix together well with
a wire whisk. Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture, and combine well.
Stir in walnuts and raisins. Bake in greased and floured muffin tins (or
use paper liners ) at 350 F for 25 minutes.
Makes 18 muffins
To take advantage of these special flours’ absorbing ability, combine 1
cup of fruit or vegetable flour with 4 cups of milk and 3 eggs for a
custard. For pudding, add 1 cup fruit or vegetable flour to 4 cups of
milk and 6 Tbsp of cornstarch.
~Apple Pudding~
4 cups of milk
1 cup dried apple flour
1/4 cup dried peach flour
6 Tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp ground dried orange rind
raisins and cinnamon ( optional )
Heat 3 cups of milk over medium heat until a skin forms on top.
Meanwhile, combine apple and peach flours, cornstarch, and the remaining
cup of cold milk and mix well. Stir some of the hot milk into the
mixture, then slowly pour the mixture into the remaining hot milk. Stir
and cook over medium low heat until mixture thickens and begins to
bubble. Cook about 2 more minutes until the starchy flavor disappears.
Stir in the vanilla, orange rind, and raisins, if desired. Put into
serving dishes, and sprinkle with cinnamon, if desired. Cool before serving.
Makes 8 servings.
Submitted by: David
Thank you for those directions and recipes. With an abundand garden this year I was wondering if I could make flour out of some of the produce.