#bean flour

[cazort]

I can't believe I just used up another 2lb bag of urad flour. I am seriously hooked on this stuff. I want to tell everyone about it.

I use it to make pancakes, mainly! It makes great pancakes, and it's rly nutritious, it's basically a bean flour.

[cazort]

I've been experimenting with baking with different flours for some time, but some time last year I decided I wanted to delve into bean flours. Bean flours are relatively cheap, and are among some of the most nutritious flours out there, higher in protein than most other flours, higher in fiber, lower in net carbs, and also packed with micronutrients including both vitamins and minerals.

I first tried out besan, an Indian flour made out of chickpeas. It was delicious and easy to work with, so from there I branched out, trying mung/moong bean flour (which is green!), urad flour (from shelled matpe beans, a.k.a. urad beans, a.k.a. white lentils, a.k.a. "black gram" (the beans are black but white on the inside)), mathia flour (a blend of moth beans and mathia beans) and soybean flour.

I love them. They are all quite easy to work with, although each has their quirks. Besan flour clumps a lot, when dry or wet. Urad, moong, and mathia flour are very dusty when dry. Urad flour clumps a lot when wet, and gets gummy/slimy and doesn't want to blend into water. But they're no harder than other gluten-free flours and some are actually easier. Moong is a lot like a typical gluten-free flour, a little dry and crumbly. Besan isn't, it tends to create an eggy texture, it makes things that hold together well, stay moist, and don't burn easily. Urad is also great, once you get the flour to actually blend in with water, it makes things that have a nice, light fluffy texture, moist, and hold together well. It works best in blends. And mathia flour is a great blend. Soy flour is different, it produces things with a spongy, tofu-like texture, which makes sense. It is pretty easy to work with though.

These flours are incredibly nutritious. Like the increase in nutritional value switching even from whole wheat flour to bean flours is crazy.

Whole wheat flour has 4g protein and 3g fiber per 1/4, then it has about 19g of starch. The same amount of Besan has 5g protein. Moong, urad, and mathia all have 7g protein and 4g fiber, and only about 16g starch. Soybean is even crazier, with 12g protein and very little starch.

Their iron contents are all quite high too, and folate too is much higher than in whole wheat. Like 1/4 cup of whole wheat only has like 3% of the RDA of folate but besan has like 25%. Urad and mathia are similar, and moong is even higher (because it is made with the shells) and soybean is also really high. And it's not just that, most of the B vitamins and minerals are higher. It's nuts.

I think it's a huge life hack to start consuming these flours. Virtually any baked good you can sub out 1/4 of the flour for a bean flour without much change to the recipe. For certain types of things, like muffins or cakes or sweetbreads that rely on egg for structure, you can get away with much more, and if you are clever, you can make things out of 100% bean flour. Pancakes work really well out of 100% bean flour. Besan makes an omelet-like pancake because of its eggy texture. Moong makes a bit of a drier one. Urad makes a very convincing "normal" style pancake, and mathia somewhat too. Soy is great up to about 1/4 of a recipe, and any more than that it contributes a tofu-like texture (which you might like, if you like tofu.)

For many uses, like breading or thickening soups or sauces, you can just fully sub any bean flour, 100%, it slightly changes the flavor and texture, but the big change is replacing a mostly-empty carb (white flour or cornstarch) with a nutritionally-dense food.

I seriously think our world would be a better place if people used bean flours more.

Oh, and they stay fresh well! I don't know what it is, if it's the antioxidant content or what, but they don't seem prone to spoilage at all. They seem to stay fresh much longer than most flours and they do not require refrigeration once opened as long as you store them properly and use them up in a reasonable timeframe.

[cjcooksvegan]

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[cjcooksvegan]

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[cjcooksvegan]

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[cjcooksvegan]

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[cjcooksvegan]

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So as I embarked on my journey to clean out my pantry, I happened upon the possibility of making bean flour. What is bean flour, you ask? Well, it’s pretty much what it sounds like: flour made out of ground up beans. It could be any bean: chickpeas, black beans, pinto beans. Even lentils can be made into flour apparently. Continue reading

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[dubaifitfoodie]

Akara Pancakes

Hey loves,

Tomorrow is Pancake day! Who’s excited? I know I am. I’ve done more pancake recipes on my blog than anything else, so it’s pretty obvious I love pancakes. Make anything into a pancake and I will gobble it all up. So when you look at my title and wonder what I’ve done, don’t be surprised.

Growing up, Saturday mornings meant a breakfast of Moin-Moin (Bean Pudding) and Ogi/Pap/Akamu (Corn…

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