By Shelley Colson
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June 17, 2025
I recently started milling my own flour! You may not have even known that was a thing.....I didn't either until I listened to a podcast featuring Sue Becker from Bread Beckers. On this podcast, I learned about the history of white commercial flour and how so many nutrients are stripped away in the process of creating it. There is just no substitute for whole grain flour freshly milled in your own kitchen and then used in your baked goods. If you're like me, maybe you've wondered how many cultures virtually lived on bread in ancient times. After listening to this podcast, it all made so much sense! The store bought flour we use today is nothing like what was used then - full of B vitamins, Vitamin E, and fiber. In April, I asked for a mill for my birthday, ordered some organic wheat berries, and have been baking up all kinds of delicious goodness for my family using fresh milled flour. Many of my friends have been asking me to share the recipes I've been using so I thought I'd compile the links all in one place to easily share them. (Little off topic from my typical Country Pumpkins posts, but this is the blog platform I have, so I'm going with it! ha!) Keep in mind, I'm still new to this and am not an expert by any means. :) I do share tried and true recipes by people I DO consider to be experts though. My family has loved all of these! My Tips for Using Fresh Milled Flour: While you can modify your regular recipes to use fresh milled flour instead, starting out, I recommend using recipes made exclusively for fresh milled flour. There are lots of great ones out there on Pinterest and blogs. Know your wheat. I'd start out with at least hard white, hard red, and soft white so you have what you need on hand for creating a variety of recipes. Hard wheat has a higher protein content and is what you need for yeasted or sourdough breads. Soft wheat is best suited for cookies, cakes, and biscuits. There are MANY other varieties of "ancient grains" to try as well but to start out, I'm keeping it simple with these basics. Follow some fresh milled flour bakers on Facebook and join their groups! Lots of helpful info and recipes are shared there. Resources: MILL: I ordered a Wondermill from Bread Beckers website. Unfortunately they are currently out of stock. I also hear great things about the Nutrimill which is in stock currently at this link . WHEAT: I ordered my first wheat berries from Bread Beckers, but shipping is expensive on heavy buckets of grain as you can imagine. I have since started ordering my wheat from Azure Standard which has multiple monthly delivery sites in the area including Williamstown. This is a great way to save on shipping costs. INFO: Want to learn more about the health benefits of fresh milled flour? Here's a link to the podcast I listened to that completely blew my mind! Sue Becker who was interviewed on that podcast also has her own YouTube channel with tons of helpful information and tips. I watched several of her videos to learn about the different kinds of wheat and how to use them. PEOPLE TO FOLLOW: So far I have been loving fresh milled recipes by Lovely Bell Bakes , Grains in Small Places , and Fresh Milled Mama . Favorite Fresh Milled Flour Recipes: Fresh Milled Sourdough - Sourdough has been the trickiest thing I've tried with fresh milled flour so far. Not that the recipe is hard. It's actually VERY easy and quite fast for sourdough. Freshly milled flour ferments much more quickly than commercial flour. You end up with a more dense loaf with less oven spring, but it is moist and delicious. My family still prefers this over yeast bread. For this recipe by Grains in Small Places I bulk ferment for 4 hours then bake immediately with no cold retard. I also spend a few minutes doing pinch and folds when I first mix the water, flour, and starter and THEN do a couple minutes of slap and folds after the autolyze when I mix in the salt. So far, this has given me the best oven spring out of other recipes and methods I have tried. I prefer 100% hard white wheat for this. I converted my regular starter over to fresh milled by simply switching over to feeding it fresh milled flour. No issues. Just in case though, I'd recommend keeping back some regular starter for a short while. Yeast Sandwich Bread Brioche Hamburger Buns Simple Chewy Bagels Yellow Cake Chocolate Chip Cookies - my kids' favorite! Light and Fluffy Pancakes - we love them with blueberries! Banana Muffins (this is my take on Sue Becker's Basic Muffin Recipe) 170 g. Hard Red Wheat Berries 100 g. Hard White Wheat Berries 1 tsp. Salt 1 tsp. Baking Soda 1 tsp. Baking Powder 1 c. Buttermilk (I use regular milk with a splash of white vinegar or lemon juice) 1 Egg 1/2 c. Coconut Oil (melted) 1/2 c. Honey 2 Ripe Bananas - mashed 1/2 t. Cinnamon 1/4 t. Nutmeg 1/2 c. Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips (if desired) Directions: Mill flour. Measure dry ingredients into a bowl. Stir in wet ingredients until blended. Fill greased muffin tins 3/4 full. I make half of them without chocolate chips and half with chocolate chips. Makes about 14 muffins. Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes Copycat "Red Lobster" Biscuits (my variation of Sue Beckers' Easy Drop Biscuits) 250 g. Hard White Wheat Berries 1 T. Baking Powder 1 t. Salt 1/2 t. Garlic Powder 1/4 c. Olive Oil 1 c. Milk 2/3 c. Cheddar Cheese, shredded 3 T. Butter, melted 1/2 t. Garlic Butter Seasoning (garlic powder would work too) Directions: Mill flour. Mix together milled flour, baking powder, salt, and 1/2 t. garlic powder. Stir in olive oil and milk. Next add in 2/3 c. shredded cheddar cheese and stir. Drop by tablespoons onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes or until light golden brown. Remove from oven and brush with mixture of 3 T. melted butter and 1/2 t. garlic butter seasoning. Makes about a dozen. Hope this is helpful to someone! Have any questions about milling your own flour? Let me know in the comments below!
