Baking with Whole Grains: Cornmeal Biscuits

I haven’t posted recipes in a while, but I’m hoping to get back in the habit!

Yesterday I baked cornmeal biscuits for breakfast. Well, I call them cornmeal biscuits because cornmeal has such an assertive flavor and texture that even if you only add a small amount of it, it usually dominates the flavor of the final product. In the case of these biscuits, I probably added less than 1/4 cup of cornmeal, but you could sure taste it!

Whenever I bake anything that isn’t a fine-textured cake — anything from biscuits to pizza dough to pancakes, waffles, muffins, or even chocolate chip cookies — I always add a mixture of whole grains. My usual ratio is about 2/3 unbleached all-purpose flour to 1/3 whole grain flour. So if a recipe calls for 2 cups flour, I use a little more than 1 cup all-purpose flour, and a little less than 1 cup whole grain flour. I choose the type of whole grain flour based on the type of food I’m baking.

So, for these biscuits, I threw in some rye flour, cornmeal, and a little bit of my all-purpose gluten-free flour, which is itself a mixture of garbanzo bean flour, tapioca starch, fava bean flour, and sorghum flour. When I say “threw in”, that’s what I mean — I don’t measure, I take a measuring cup and scoop in a little of this, a little of that, until I’ve filled it up.

Last night I made brownies (oops, no picture — sorry!). For the brownies I combined all-purpose flour with some gluten-free flour and, yum, almond flour. Nothing beats the subtle taste of almonds with chocolate.

Why do I do this? I like the taste better! I am so used to the more complex and nutty flavors of whole grains that plain processed wheat flour tastes bland and boring to me.

Do you experiment with flours, too? Are there any combinations that you especially like?