Any Home Bakers Here?

[sunflour]

Someone gave me a bottle of dried organic Lavender. Anyone ever baked with it?

 

[wyoDreamer]

@shortgrass Sorry, no help here for a low-priced grain mill; DH spoils me on kitchen gadgets and I have a Country Living Mill with motor. So glad we bought it before they became popular and the price doubled almost overnight. It works like a dream. My advice is to buy the best you can afford, a wheat mill takes a beating and you do need to get something durable. Look for as much metal parts as possible.
A friend of mine has a $50 grain mill that they bought from Emergency Essentials - a Victorio I think (spelling could be wrong). She likes it OK, but it takes her forever to grind the wheat up. And her grind is not nearly as fine as I like for bread. I had her bread and it seems like she uses the ground wheat more as an additive to white bread than making whole wheat bread. As in - she uses 1 cup of her coarse wheat flour and 4 cups of white flour to make a loaf of bread.

 

[N F C]

Someone gave me a bottle of dried organic Lavender. Anyone ever baked with it?

The only Lavender I've used was part of the Herbs de Provence blend I have in my spice collection (basil, chervil, marjoram tarragon, thyme and lavender). One thing I really like using this for is in egg salad, it adds just a subtle hint of something different.

With a quick search, I did find a couple of recipes that look good using lavender. Allrecipes.com has several different recipes but their shortbread cookies and tea bread look delicious! Here's a link to get you to them:
http://m.allrecipes.com/recipes/1418/ingredients/herbs-and-spices/herbs/lavender/?mxt=t06rda

Let us know what you end up using it for, it would be fun to try something different!

 

[sunflour]

@NorthFLChick Thanks for link. Spent some surfing time and found several - now gotta decided.

 

[Zeil]

@NorthFLChick
  Thanks for link.  Spent some surfing time and found several - now gotta decided.  

Just be careful with lavender, I made lavender truffles a while back, part of which is infusing the lavender in heated cream until aromatic... Yeah the aromatic part is not as obvious as you would assume, you're supposed to stop at just the lightest scent of lavender, I of course kept going until the scent was quite strong...

It wasn't terrible exactly just terribly against the grain to bite into chocolate and have the scent of lavender absolutely flood your nasal cavity.

It's a really fine line with lavender between oh what a nice unusual flavour and god that's a bit wrong.

 

[sunflour]

Just be careful with lavender, I made lavender truffles a while back, part of which is infusing the lavender in heated cream until aromatic... Yeah the aromatic part is not as obvious as you would assume, you're supposed to stop at just the lightest scent of lavender, I of course kept going until the scent was quite strong...

It wasn't terrible exactly just terribly against the grain to bite into chocolate and have the scent of lavender absolutely flood your nasal cavity.

It's a really fine line with lavender between oh what a nice unusual flavour and god that's a bit wrong.

Thanks for advice.

 

[sunflour]

Baked a blueberry cobbler yesterday, the type with batter in the bottom and berries layered on top. It was beautiful coming out of the oven but once cooled the crust fell flat - really ugly so didn't take a pic. But quite tasty.

 

[N F C]

Baked a blueberry cobbler yesterday, the type with batter in the bottom and berries layered on top. It was beautiful coming out of the oven but once cooled the crust fell flat - really ugly so didn't take a pic. But quite tasty.

A big dollop of whipped cream can cover up a lot of ugly, lol. Blueberry cobbler sounds good!

 

[shortgrass]

@shortgrass
  Sorry, no help here for a low-priced grain mill; DH spoils me on kitchen gadgets and I have a Country Living Mill with motor.  So glad we bought it before they became popular and the price doubled almost overnight.  It works like a dream.  My advice is to buy the best you can afford, a wheat mill takes a beating and you do need to get something durable.  Look for as much metal parts as possible. 
A friend of mine has a $50 grain mill that they bought from Emergency Essentials - a Victorio I think (spelling could be wrong).  She likes it OK, but it takes her forever to grind the wheat up.  And her grind is not nearly as fine as I like for bread.  I had her bread and it seems like she uses the ground wheat more as an additive to white bread than making whole wheat bread.  As in - she uses 1 cup of her coarse wheat flour and 4 cups of white flour to make a loaf of bread. 

Lol I think your friend and I have the same mill ROFL... I tossed the box but that name sounds too eerily familiar

I don't know why I insist on doing things the hard way lol; maybe it's time to do some sucking up and eyelash batting...promise him some un-gritty bread I bought some hard northern that makes this mill look like a Gummer cow and he just raises his eyebrow and watches me curse at it; you'd think by now I would have had a new one, but I think he's just waiting for me to ask instead of hint around about it

 

[N F C]

@shortgrass don't forget, the holiday season is coming. Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving...you know, the usual gift-giving ones.