Acorn Bread for Thanksgiving!

Besides being known as "Veggie PAK", I am also known to a few people as "The Suburban Forager" because I like to see what is available around me naturally that could be used as a food source. I had watched the TV show called "Man Woman Wild" and I saw that the woman made acorn bread from acorns gathered off the forest floor. I knew at that moment that I had to try using acorns for flour and see how the bread tasted.

I had it easier than she did though, because I have a large oak tree in my front yard that is loaded with acorns. I normally park my pickup truck under the branches of the tree, and the squirrels that are trying to get the acorns knock them off and they fall into the bed of my truck. Fortunately, the squirrels will not venture onto my truck so I have a nice accumulation of acorns there in the bed.

I picked up a nice pile of acorns in a grocery bag and took them into the house to shell. After shelling they amounted to a little over a cup of acorns. Then I looked up directions for preparing the acorns for use as a food source and found the recipe for acorn bread. Here they are in a pot on the stove getting ready to boil for the first time. It is recommended that they be boiled many times to remove the tannin so they are not bitter. I tasted one raw and I now know why they recommend doing that procedure.






  

Now they were boiling vigorously for the first time. I kept stirring them to possibly help some of the tannin leach out more quickly. I boiled them seven times alternating between two pots of boiling water. I would pour one pot into the large sieve I had over the kitchen sink and then take the acorns and dump them into the second pot of boiling water. Using two boiling pots of water kept me from having to wait for the water in each pot to come to a boil.

After all the boiling was completed, I spread out the acorns to cool off and dry for awhile. After the acorns had cooled off, it was time for a decision on how to use them. They could be used for snacks, or for making bread. I chose using them for the acorn bread.

I didn't want to use a blender or food processor for grinding the acorns into flour because it appeared that there was a strong possibility that they would just gum up on the blades. I decided to use my Pampered Chef food chopper with the rubber bottom. That was an excellent choice because it worked just great! You can see the consistency of the chopped acorns and they have been chopped pretty fine.

I poured the chopped acorns, whole wheat flour, and other dry ingredients into a bowl and mixed them together to blend them thoroughly before I put any liquid in with them. After I put all the ingredients in there and began mixing them together, the picture shows that it didn't quite have the consistency I was looking for. To remedy that, I added a few (maybe 4 or 5) tablespoons of milk and that did the trick. It was a nice, smooth and stiff mixture.

Next I sprayed Pam into a Pyrex bowl and poured/scooped out the acorn and flour mixture into it. I took the spoon and patted it down so it was pretty level across the entire top. I was surprised that it worked so well because it didn't stick to the spoon in clumps like I thought it might.

I baked it for 25 minutes and checked the center with a toothpick and it came out completely clean. It was done!

I took it out and flipped it onto a cooling rack. As you can see, the bottom came out as a perfect light brown bread.

And here is the final product! A beautiful round loaf of acorn bread!

After it cooled for awhile, I cut it and tried a piece with some soft margarine spread on it. Oh my gosh! It was so good! It was remarkably close in flavor to regular nut bread.

Would I go through the trouble of making this again?  Absolutely!

If you're interested, here is the recipe:

ACORN BREAD
1 cup acorn flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup maple syrup or sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
Bake in pan for 30 minutes or until done at 400 degrees

That's it!

I would like to also wish everyone a wonderful and safe Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanks for visiting and taking the time to read about the results of my foraging.
Veggie PAK