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Baking Supplies: Make Your Own

October 1, 2014 by Homestead Lady 11 Comments

Make Your Own Baking Supplies l Five DIY baking supplies you can make or grow yourself l Homestead Lady.com

Learn to make your own 5 basic baking supplies for your favorite cookies and treats. Included is a FREE downloadable PDF with various how-to’s from this baking supplies list.

There are certain things that are essential when considering the creation of a thing as serious as a good cookie. Chris, from Joybilee Farms shared her grandmother’s secrets in a recent post and I feel it is a must read.

I’m not much of a baker, to be perfectly frank. Quality baking takes skill and attention to detail and I’m sadly lacking in both areas. However, I do like to eat cookies and I love wholesome baking supplies. So, it’s worth it to me to learn to make some of my own baking supplies each month and throughout my DIY year.

For more DIY ideas, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter whereupon you’ll receive our free E-Book, Health Wise Food Storage, as well as an exclusive access code to our members-only Library with lots of other FREE books and resources.

Baking Supplies

FYI, if you’d like the PDF notes attached to this article, we’re happy for you to have them. You’ll find a few more thoughts on gluten-free flours, as well as instructions on how to make your own butter, herbal sugars, sprinkles and powdered sugar. No strings attached – it’s just a nice little PDF you can print and tuck into your cookbook. Make Your Own Baking Supplies Downloadable PDF Notes l Homestead Lady.com

Click Here to Download Baking Supplies Notes
Kids in the Kitchen

Also, just a quick note on including the kids: please do it! There’s nothing like training your children early to be DIYers in the kitchen. They will have a healthy relationship with food the more they cook with homemade and wholesome ingredients. Yes, even treats can be healthier and you give your children a great gift each time you sacrifice a piece of your sanity to allow their brand of crazy to kick in in your kitchen. The truth is, it isn’t your kitchen along – it’s the family kitchen.

Flour

A most basic ingredient for quality cookies is flour. Now, you can grow your own grain, if that’s your thing but I’m not quite there yet. I purchase grains in bulk and keep them in my long term food storage.

For cookies, the wheat I use most often is white wheat, though I prefer einkorn. To make your own flour, you will need a grain grinder. I have both an electric and a manual one. There are a number of grain mills on the  market and, I’m not gonna lie, they’re an investment.

Being able to control the quality of my flour (freshly ground flour is far more nutrient dense) and create flour from my wheat storage became important enough to my family’s health that I saved a bit here and there until I could afford a quality mill. I would suggest you not bother to buy a poorly made grain mill because it will just break on you. I will never forget the first time I ground my own wheat into flour – I felt like I’d made fire, or something.

To learn more on the benefits of soaking your grains and flours before using them, please visit this link from Cultures For Health.

To learn to make your own sprouted wheat to dehydrate and then grind into flour, please visit this link:  The Nourished Kitchen

Non-Grain Flours

I went through a long phase when I couldn’t eat wheat at all and I learned to make cookies with various other flours. I would suggest organic, non-GMO ingredients. Here are a few recipes for gluten free flours to make yourself:

  • From Gluten Freely Frugal,
  • Natural and Nourished Family,
  • Gluten Free Girl
  • And a sweet potato flour from Rockin W Homestead

For some more ideas on How to Stock Your Pantry for the Holiday Season from Naturally Free Life, please visit this link. She might be able to remind you of a few areas you may have forgotten, like herbs.

Fat

Time was I used Crisco for fluffy baked goods; now I wonder how I survived those days.

Quality fat is a life sustaining substance that contributes to our health and quality of life. Fat is sacred.

Butter is typically used in cookies and it is one of the easiest dairy products to make yourself. You need high quality cream for good butter. If you’re stuck with store bought cream, it will all be ultra-pasteurized and, therefore, not really that healthy but will still make a great cookie. If you have access to milk straight from the animal then you can create a wholesome butter to use in and on everything.

For learning more about making your own butter, please visit this link.

Non-Dairy Fat

Another great fat to use, especially if you’re on a Paleo diet, is coconut oil. If you really want to make your own coconut oil at home, here you go. I can certainly highly recommend learning to use coconut oil. One of my current favorite Paleo cookbooks for families is Danielle Walker’s, Against All Grain.

Sugar

I don’t have cane fields near me and its quite a process to refine sugar crystals. Here’s a fun article on getting sugar syrup from beets from American Preppers Network – a lot of beets are needed to get a small amount of syrup.

In my opinion, the best and most healthy sugar to make yourself is honey – well, actually, the bees do all the work. Raw honey, like raw forms of sugar, is only raw when kept under 115-ish degrees. So, when you bake it, those nutrients that are sensitive to extreme heat begin to die off. Still, for sugar, this is a healthier option.

To learn how to get ready for keeping bees, please visit this link.

Once you have the honey, learn how to extract raw honey from your beehive, please visit this link.

To learn how to make a delectable vanilla honey, please visit this link.

White Sugar Woes

Please toss out all your table sugar just as soon as you’re ready because it simply has no redeeming features. Once you wean yourself off of white sugar, it will most likely start to taste metallic and quite nasty. There are several healthier sugar options out there and I can suggest you try looking at Wholesome Sweeteners. Check out their sustainable, fair trade practices on their site!

To learn to make your own powdered sugar from organic coconut sugar (or any crystalized sugar), just visit this link. You can do this with succanat, too, and it makes a great frosting that tastes like maple glaze and makes you supremely happy.

Vanilla

I don’t live where I can grow vanilla beans but we can buy organic vanilla beans and make our own vanilla – easy peasy!

My biggest beef with commercial vanilla is that its tinctured in alcohol and tastes nasty. I tincture mine in organic vegetable glycerin and make half gallon batches, several gallons at a time.

Here’s how to make your own vanilla from Small Footprint Family. You can use your spent beans to make the aforementioned vanilla honey.

Sprinkles and Fun Stuff

Did you know you can make your own chocolate chips?! This is a DIY I can get into. Here are a couple different recipes to try and each has their own thing to say about how they hold up in baking.

  • From Whole New Mom Healthy Chocolate Chips
  • Here are some Vegan chocolate chips from The Coconut Mama
  • Wellness Mama can show you how to make it in bars
  • From Chocolate Covered Katie Healthy White Chocolate Chips

This year we experimented with making our own colored sugars for cookie and cake decorating after reading this post From the Nerdy Farm Wife. It was so fun and not hard at all – my kids had a blast!

We ended up making several herbal sugars which were both lovely and tasty! Remember, we’ve included those instructions, as well as the instructions for making your own sprinkles in our FREE downloadable PDF which you can access here. This is an excerpt from our book, The Do It Yourself Homestead, from The Homestead Kitchen section – we hope you enjoy it!

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Special thanks to this Pexels user for the cover photo.

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Baking Supplies: Make Your Own

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Filed Under: Whole Kitchen Tagged With: Gluten Free, Healthy Grains, Healthy Treat, Home Storage and Preparedness, Homemade, Homestead Question, Make it Yourself

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jennifer A says

    October 1, 2014 at 6:34 am

    I can’t wait to see the recipes! My absolute favorite dessert is cookies, and I haven’t figured out how to do cookies well without all the sugars. Great series!

    Reply
    • Homestead Lady says

      October 1, 2014 at 8:26 am

      Fortunately, there are a lot of talented bakers in the world from whom you and I can take inspiration! Plus, your tastes really do start to change. I’ve gotten to the point where I really, actively dislike that flavor of table sugar. And, btw, oh how I love cookies, too!

      Reply
  2. Gentle Joy says

    October 1, 2014 at 8:21 am

    A lot of good information here… to use as a reference. Thank you.

    Reply
  3. Chris says

    October 1, 2014 at 10:00 am

    Thanks for the mention. Great post. I’ve been trying to figure out how to soak wheat for bread making. Just don’t want to have to dehydrate after soaking before grinding. I go through 5 to 7 cups every week with bread baking. And my dehydrator is in full operation with fruits and vegetables at this time of year. Although you’d definitely have to dry soaked wheat for cookie baking.

    Do you soak your wheat before grinding or after?

    I really like Bob’s Red Mill products, too. They are top quality.

    Reply
    • Homestead Lady says

      October 1, 2014 at 11:19 pm

      I’ve tried both ways, Chris. I’ve soaked the whole wheat flour in whey or kefir or even just raw milk and then mixed the dough as I normally would but with the gluten engaged from the soaking process, its a workout. I’m currently experimenting with soaking the wheat berries until they sprout and then dehydrating them in order to grind them. With them sprouted, each kernel has a little tail and that makes pushing it through the grinder’s opening harder than with unsprouted wheat – it takes twice as long because of that. I make bread products for seven people and although we don’t eat nearly as much as we used to, sprouting has proved to be more time consuming than I can probably handle. I think I’m going to go back to natural leavening (sourdough) because that takes care of the fermenting and the rising so we don’t have to consume commercial yeast, which can also be a problem for your gut.

      Reply
  4. Heidi @ Pint Size Farm says

    October 1, 2014 at 4:41 pm

    I’ve never heard of using vegetable oil for vanilla! I will definitely have to try it. Everything I’ve read calls for Vodka and we never have that in the house 🙁

    Reply
    • Homestead Lady says

      October 1, 2014 at 11:06 pm

      I use glycerin – I never use alcohol either!

      Reply
  5. Marla says

    October 4, 2014 at 11:37 am

    Lots of great information here. I certainly agree with the coconut oil and I use in almost anything that I bake or cook and look the texture and taste it gives to foods. Thanks so much for sharing all the recipes and valuable information with us at Real Food Fridays. Twitted & pinned.

    Reply
  6. Kristin says

    October 8, 2014 at 7:34 am

    Great post. Congrats on being chosen as a featured post on this week’s Wildcrafting Wednesdays! I hope you’ll join us again and share more of your awesome posts.
    https://www.herbanmomma.com

    Reply
  7. Kristin says

    December 31, 2014 at 11:42 am

    Congrats on being nominated for the Wildcrafting Wednesdays 2015 People’s Choice Awards! Thank you for sharing your wonderful post with us and many happy wishes to you in the new year.
    https://www.herbanmomma.com

    Reply
    • Homestead Lady says

      December 31, 2014 at 11:53 am

      Thank you, Kristin! I appreciate the nomination – how cool! Have a wonderful new year at Herban Momma!

      Reply

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