I was trolling around the internet trying to find wheat and bread recipes that I could pirate and use for my blog when I came across a recipe for “Toasted Wheat Berry Salad”. That got my attention fast. I’ve ground enough wheat to know that the little berries (I swear that’s what they’re called) aren’t soft enough to eat straight. Not unless you *like* seeing the dentist on a weekly basis. Me, not so much. So, I read on. Apparently, if you toast them long enough they get soft and you can use them as sprinkles on anything! I had to try it.
So, I pulled a can of red and white wheat out of storage and pulled out one of my small baking sheets. You want to start small so you can keep a handle on things, or so is my motto for experiments that deal with heat and could possibly hurt me. Better a small burn than a big one. So, you spread out a single row of wheat onto the pan, leaving a little room for rolling around.
Pre-Heat the oven (very important for timing purposes) to 325.
Slide in tray and wait for about 2.5-3 minutes.
Shake tray so the wheat gets the other side toasted as well.
Close the over and wait another 2.5-3 minutes.
You need to use your sense of smell and hearing to tell when it’s done. For me, red wheat smells like chocolate-chip cookies with walnuts just before you start hearing it pop. If you don’t mind that it might be popping into your oven, let it set for another 10-30 seconds. The darker you can get the wheat the easier it is to eat and better it tastes.
White wheat, to me, smells like a cross between a beef-roast and long dried grass on a blistering hot summers day. Not as pleasing as hot chocolate-chop cookies with walnuts, which might be why I only toast red wheat now.
Let it cool and try it. It’s still hard, but it cracks easily when you eat it and it has a nutty flavor.
If you are intending on using it for your bread, wait for it to cool before you grind it. Depending upon your tastes you will want to put 1/4 to 1/3 of your wheat ingredient as the toasted red wheat. The bread comes out tasting a bit nuttier and, if you can quantify a feeling, comfier. When you toast the bread and the white wheat gets a little toasted and the toasted red wheat is double toasted you have a breakfast worth celebrating.
