My love of Kamut

I have been baking bread for our family for almost a year now.  It is something that I love to do – especially when I can purchase organic flours or locally milled flours to add in.  It is so fun to experiement with the recipe by adding other flours in to see how it makes the bread taste…and this is what led me to discover some organic kamut flour at Bulk Barn.

Oooh, I love the taste of the bread when it has kamut in it.  It is rich, and buttery tasting and it has a beautiful golden colour.  This summer I couldn’t wait to make bread at the cottage because my brother from Calgary would be there.  He also makes his own bread and I wanted to share the experience of kamut with him – it’s like I knew that he would get how amazing it is.  Well, he lived up to my expectations.  We sampled the bread for our bedtime snack – and he had all the kids smelling the bread and taking a bite before they put anything on it.  He also said that it tasted like our Grandma’s bread – so that may be another reason why I love it so much.

Kamut is an ancient relative of the modern durum wheat – they call it the “sweet wheat” because it is not bitter.  It has a Egyptian heritage; “kamut” is an ancient Egyptian word for wheat.   When compared to common wheat it is higher in 8 out 0f 9 minerals, contains up to 65% more amino acids, boasts more lipids and fatty acids, and has up to 40% higher protein level.  It is also considered a “high energy grain” because of it’s higher percentage of lipids which produce more energy than carbs.

There are a few websites out there where you can learn more about kamut, but I think it’s popularity is going to really increase and we will all know the name soon.  It is easy to substitute into any recipe, the only change you may have to make it add a bit more liquid.  I think kamut crepes or muffins are next on my list of experimenting…maybe I will even throw some into the next batch of cookies!

Aaah, kamut, my love.