Kim Boyce - Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours

Baking with whole-grain flours used to be about making food that was good for you. But Kim Boyce has reinvented the wheel with this original cookbook that features delicious recipes using 12 different kinds of whole-grain flours, from amaranth to buckwheat to rye to teff, proving that whole-grain baking is more about incredible flavors and textures than anything else.

When Boyce, a former pastry chef at Spago and Campanile, left the kitchen to raise a family, she was determined to create delicious treats that her kids (and everybody else) would love. She began experimenting with whole-grain flours, and Good to the Grain is the happy result. The cookbook proves that whole-grain baking can be easily done with a pastry chefs flair.

Good to the Grain gathers together some 75 recipes for muffins, biscuits, scones, pancakes, waffles, cakes, breads, and porridges. Recipes include Strawberry Barley Scones, filled with jam and the malty flavor of barley flour; Spice Muffins, made with a multigrain flour mixture and chopped nuts; Honey Hazelnut Cookies, drizzled with a spiced syrup; Carrot and Corn-Flour Waffles, brightly colored and wholesome; and an Apple Graham Coffee Cake, loaded with fruit and flavor. The book also features a chapter on making jams, compotes, and fruit butters with seasonal fruits that help bring out the wonderfully complex flavors of whole-grain flours.

KIM BOYCE
with Amy Scattergood

Photographs by QUENTIN BACON

stewart, tabori & chang | new york

Published in 2010 by Stewart, Tabori & Chang An imprint of ABRAMS

Text copyright 2010 Kim Boyce
Photographs copyright 2010 Quentin Bacon

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Boyce, Kim.
Good to the grain : baking with whole-grain flours / by Kim Boyce with Amy Scattergood.10
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-58479-830-9
1. Cookery (Cereals) 2. Baking. 3. Grain. I. Scattergood, Amy, 1964
II. Title.
TX808.B596 2010
641.631dc22 2009034381

Editor: Luisa Weiss
Designer: Susi Oberhelman
Production Manager: Tina Cameron

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Since there are so many cookbooks on the shelves these days, I feel very strongly that if you are going to write one, it should be something nobody has done before, and with Good to the Grain, Kim Boyce has clearly met that standard. Before Id eaten a bite from any of the recipes, I looked at the table of contents and thought, Wow! This isnt just another collection of recycled recipes. These are truly original. When I actually tasted the baked goods that came from these recipes, I was convinced Kim had created a book that really had a reason to be on the shelves, a book that people would discover was invaluable, and one they would come to love.

When Kim first told me about her idea for a baking book that utilized whole-grain in place of refined white flour, I knew that if anyone could pull it off, she could. Ive known Kim since she came to work for me as the pastry chef at Campanile in 2000, and I had total confidence in her from the very beginning. I had always worked closely with my pastry chefs at Campanile, but at the time I hired Kim, I was ready to start giving up some of the day-to-day responsibilities of that job, and Kim turned out to be the perfect person to take over. She possessed all the qualities I admire in a bakerthe same ones I have always aspired to myself: Her presentations were fairly simple, her desserts tasted as good as they looked (and looked as good as they tasted!), and she was willing to do whatever it took to develop a recipe to a point where it was absolutely as good as it could be, no matter how long and painstaking the process. Naturally, the same qualities that made her an exceptional employee come through in this exceptional book.

My priority as both a baker and an eater is not health but flavor. What makes the recipes in this book so special is thatwhether you care about whole grains or notthey are truly delicious. A perfect example is Kims Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. I am a big fan of chocolate chip cookies, and I have strong opinions about what makes a good one. I like the chocolate to be chopped by hand, and I like the cookies to have a nice crackle on top from having risen in the oven and then fallen when they cooled. This is the indication that a chocolate chip cookie will be chewy and moist (as opposed to cakey or dry), and Kims cookie has that. The texture and flavor of the cookie are in no way compromised by being made with whole-wheat flour, and the same holds true for every recipe I tried from this book.

Kims Muscovado Sugar Cake has the deep, complex molasses flavor of the muscovado sugar without being too sweetjust the sort of thing youd love to have with a cup of coffee or tea.

What makes the recipes in this book so special is thatwhether you care
about whole grains or notthey are truly delicious.

The fact that the cake is made with amaranth flour is almost incidental. Her Hazelnut Muffins have a light, airy crumb and are absolutely nothing like the leaden things you might expect from muffins made with whole-grain flour (in this case, teff flour). The same goes for her Sand Cookies, which are buttery, crumbly, and just so good. If she hadnt told me they were made with Kamut flour, it never would have occurred to me that there was anything whole-grain about them.

Whole grains aside, the recipes here reminded me of just how creative a baker Kim is. A perfect example is what she does with granola. Most peoples variations on granola have to do with adding cashews, sunflower seeds, dried apricots, and the like. But Kim has made a granola using oats and seeds (no nuts), with a touch of cayenne added to the mixI wouldnt have thought to do that in a million years, and yet it is utterly delicious.