Most home bakers don’t go to the lengths Denise Wissman does to make breads, muffins, pizza dough and pancakes. When Wissman wants to bake something, she doesn’t reach for a store-bought sack of flour. Instead, she pulls out her Vita-Mix high-speed blender, attaches the dry-ingredients blade and container, and adds three cups of whole grains.

Within minutes, she’s produced the freshest flour with just the texture she wants for her baking project, and by using whole grains, she’s also producing flour with optimal nutrition.

These days, we hear a lot about the importance of whole grains in a healthy diet. But just how healthy are whole-grain flours as compared with refined flours? Each whole-grain seed is a kernel composed of three elements: the bran, the germ and the endosperm. Refining removes the bran and the germ, leaving only the starchy endosperm. The vitamins, minerals, fiber, oils and proteins in the bran and the germ are lost. To compensate, refiners add minerals, vitamins and proteins to “enrich” the flour.

Wissman, who also sells her home-milled whole-wheat flours at area farmers’ markets, buys whole grains in 50 pound sacks from an organic co-op. But it’s also possible for bakers to mill their own flours at home. Whole grains are readily available at specialty food and health food stores, such as The Natural Way’s Webster Groves location, which sells hard red winter wheat, buckwheat, quinoa, oat groats and four kinds of brown rice in bulk. “You can buy as much or as little as you like,” said sales associate Kelly Reinert. “Plus, it’s all organic.”

Milling one’s own grain has been an up-and-down kind of thing in the last 20 years, according to Bob Bertarelli, vice president of Bertarelli Cutlery on The Hill. He sells two versions of the Marcato hand-cranked grain mill. “We carry them in stock now,” he said, “but a few years back the demand was so low we had to give
them away.”

Store manager Dan Bertarelli credits the evolution of health-conscious eating for the current popularity of both food mills and grain mills. “People are moving away from overprocessed foods,” he said. “In the last five years, whole grains have become much more popular.”

At Wissman’s Kimker Hills Farm stand at the Tower Grove Farmers’ Market, her flours and custom-blended waffle, pancake and pizza dough mixes are stacked next to bags of whole grains. She carries flax seeds (both golden and dark brown); long-grain brown rice; quick-cooking and old-fashioned rolled oats; wheatberries; oat groats; popcorn; and unbleached flour. Homemade preserves, jellies, pickles and signature salsas march across the center of her table. Baskets hold her fresh-baked muffins, usually banana and zucchini. Everything Wissman sells is organically grown and purchased as close to home as she can manage.

Wissman will be at the Tower Grove market on the first Saturday of the month through April, from 9 a.m. to noon. It’s located in the hall of St. John’s Episcopal Church, half a block west of South Grand Boulevard on Arsenal Street.

Wissman said her mission is to help folks eat healthy. “I grew up with great food; I’m doing the same things my mother did in the 1960s,” Wissman said. “Like her, I want to feed my family foods with maximum nutrition and taste.”

The Natural Way’s Webster Groves location sells hard red winter wheat (left), buckwheat, quinoa, oat groats and four kinds of brown rice in bulk.

Honey-Wheat-Oatmeal Bread
Courtesy of Denise Wissman

Yield: 1 loaf

2 eggs, at room temperature
3 Tbsp. honey
Moderately hot water
1/3 cup powdered milk
1 1/4 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. butter or margarine, softened
1 1/4 cup quick-cooking oats
1 cup wheat/flaxseed fresh-milled flour
1 cup unbleached flour
1 3/4 tsp. instant active dry yeast
Cooking spray

For bread machines:
• Crack the eggs into a liquid measuring cup.
• Add the honey and whisk it together with the eggs.
• Add the water to bring the ingredients to 1 1/4 cups in volume.
• Beginning with the egg mixture, put the remaining ingredients (except the cooking spray) into the bread machine in the order listed.
• The bread can be baked in the machine following the manufacturer’s directions or in a conventional oven after the first rise.

For conventional ovens:
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
• After the first rise, roll and shape the dough to fit into a 9-by-5-by-3-inch loaf pan sprayed with cooking spray to prevent sticking.
• Cover the pan with a clean towel, set it on a warm corner of the counter and allow it to rise again.
• Bake the bread for 35 minutes or until the top of the loaf browns.
• Remove the pan from the oven and let the bread cool for 10 minutes in the pan on a rack.
• Remove the bread from the pan and cool it for an additional 10 minutes on a rack.