My wife was invited to a pie day party on Saturday (3.14.15) and was required to bring a pie. Unfortunately, she has gestational diabetes and there is to be no sweet pie for her. Instead she decided to bring a quiche and I agreed to make her a whole grain crust.

For the crust, I wanted something hearty and decided to make a blend of 50/50 hard red wheat from the Upper Methow Valley, WA (I believe from Bluebird Grain Farms) and soft white wheat (no clear origin other than somewhere in the USA).

This would be the first time using my brand new Sunshine Nugget stone mill and, although my kitchen is a disaster at the moment, the milling process was relatively smooth and it was easy to get a fine and even consistency. There is more grain at then end that doesn’t get pushed through the millstones than I thought. I ran the flour through the mill again, but it wasn’t necessary. This was going to be a whole grain crust, but I decided to pull a little of the bran out. This is for a pie crust after all.

I was so focused on the bran sifting and weighing that I neglected to get a photo of the actual milled flour (not a great start to this blog). 

Here is the bran I removed, with some cracked grain berries (the grains that didn’t get pushed through the millstones completely). By weighing both, the end product was approximately a 90% extraction flour (actually a little higher because of those cracked grains).

Crust recipe: 200g of the 50/50 hard red/soft white wheat blend. 53% (105g) butter. (Butter is from Bob’s Quality Meats, who gets its from a local producer, I will have to find out exactly what farm next time). I added a pinch of salt and mustard powder. Not sure what the mustard powder is for, but my Pie cookbook recommend it for a whole grain pie crust, will have to look into that as well.

This is the eventual crust:

Pie crust done, quiche baking, and I realized my wife was leaving with the quiche, so I needed something to eat myself. I love savory pies and have been making my own pot pies for years, so rolled out some more dough for quick mini chicken pot pie. The bran (a scant 20g) was just asking to be made into a bread. I added some hard red wheat flour to the bran, mixed in a handful of currents and a teaspoon of sugar. I proofed a little yeast (which didn’t proof well), but went with it anyway. Let it rest to rise, although the rise was weak as I knew it would be, just didn’t have time to correct course. Baked both at 350F for 30 mins or so, until they looked done. Pot pie was delicious (filling was leftover chicken and roasted root vegetables, chopped up and simmered in water, white wine, and a splash of sherry vinegar, tarragon, mustard, and thickened with butter and flour). Bran bread was not bad (not excellent, but enjoyable).

Full disclosure: For the dusting, thickening, and the bran bread I used a hard red wheat flour from Nash’s Organic Produce grown and milled in the Sequim-Dungeness Valley by Delta Farm.

Then my wife came home and had saved me a piece of quiche. She won best savory pie at the party.