Adam Leonti has a passion. After training as a chef, spending years in professional kitchens, he found something that he was even more passionate about than making delicious food. He started milling his own flours to use in those delicious dishes. And now he’s taking all of his expertise and offering it up to us in Flour Lab. Subtitled An At-Home Guide to Baking with Freshly Milled Grains, this cookbook is exactly what is says. But with the most gorgeous photography and recipes that make mouth-watering breads, pizza, pasta, and pastries.
Chef Leonti has come to believe that commercialized flour is not good for us. Yes, it’s cheap and shelf stable, which is something we needed to survive for much of our history. Now, as we get back to eating all-natural, organic, simply honest ingredients, he says it’s time we get back to milling our own flours too.
To be fair, he grew up with a mother who milled her own flour, so it’s not a new idea to him. But for those who are interested in joining him in this movement, he has lots of advice, from what kind of equipment to use to how fine to mill the flours to what variety of wheat to use. And there are lots of options, so if you’re wanting to get started in this, you will need someone with some experience to take your hand and help you through.
Once you get the hang of milling your own flour, he leads you to the next step—using that beautiful fresh flour to make the most flavorful breads, like a yeasted loaf, yeasted ciabatta, sourdough durum loaf, baguettes, potatoes rolls, bagels, and rye bread. He also offers up recipes for several different types of pastas as well as several for sauces and a variety of pizza recipes complete with topping ideas. And when you want something a little sweeter, there are recipes for sponge cake, carrot cake, brownies, chocolate chip cookies, biscotti, scones, and croissants.
Because these recipes are made with freshly milled flours, they are not for beginning cooks. It takes some skill, experience, and patience to understand these recipes and create successful food with them. But for those wanting to take on this challenge, Flour Lab is the perfect place to start educating yourself to mill and use fresh flours.
This is a genuinely beautiful book. The photography is breath-taking, particularly through the recipes, where many steps are demonstrated by Leonti himself. But for me, someone who doesn’t have a lot of knowledge about milling flour, I missed having those beautiful photos showing the act of milling, showing the wheatberries before milling, some of the varieties of wheat that are available, and the difference between a coarsely milled flour and a finely milled flour, just as they finish. I would have loved to see that. But I am now fascinated by the process, and I can’t wait to learn more about fresh flour and how it’s used by chefs and by brewers.
Flour Lab is a beautiful introduction to creating and using freshly milled flours. As Leonti says, it’s “better for your health, the environment, and flavor,” and who can resist a promise like that?
A copy of Flour Lab was provided by Clarkson Potter through their Potter Previews program, with many thanks.
