Nutty, foraged, and in your backyard, roasted acorns turned into flour for the most delicious cookies.
Acorns
While acorns, from the oak tree, play an important role in forest ecology and are depended on by a wide variety of natures wildlife for sustenance, they are not widely known to us humans as an embraced nut in the culinary world.
That all changed today for me as I spent time with my grandchildren, foraging a huge bucket of acorns, one of the largest crops of acorns I have seen in my yard in quite some time, and turned them into cookies!
Acorn Flour
My first year to bake with acorn flour and it will not be my last! The harvest is huge, the process to prepare the flour was easy, though time consuming, and the flavor reminded me much of chestnut flour.
Today I baked cookies with the flour I processed but in the weeks ahead I will be trying a variety of other ways to use this luscious flour and still leave plenty acorns behind for the critters that will be looking for them in the cold winter months ahead.
Foraging
Year after year the oak trees in my yard drop a gazillion of acorns into the ground. Today, along with my grandchildren, we set out to rake them up and put into the compost pile so yard maintenance could be tended to.
My grandson asked if these nuts were eatable. I admit, in all my life, growing up around oak trees, I never gave it a thought.
Today was the day I added acorn foraging to my repertoire of culinary experiences as my grandchildren and I foraged, boiled, roasted and ground these annual acorns into flour and then ultimately into cookies!
Acorn Flour Nutrients
First, of course, acorn flour is gluten-free, but then most nut flour is. The wonderful news about acorn flour, especially if you have access to oak trees, is that it is loaded with fiber, fats, potassium, calcium and magnesium.
Yay! My yard has been trying to keep me healthy all these years and I am just discovering this!
How To Make Flour Out Of Acorns
There is lots of talk about ‘leaching’ acorns before using them. Leaching simply means to ‘remove’ a bitter taste from the nut before using them in cooking; a process whereby the acids are drained away from the acorn using water.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil, drop the collection of acorns into the water and allow to boil (covered) for about 5 minutes, remove the acorns with a slotted spoon onto a baking sheet and pop into a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes.
The acorns with pop and some may burst open but within 15 minutes the acorns will crack open and be ready to shell once they have cooled.
I use this same method to prepare chestnuts into flour around the holidays, ground and then freeze the flour for baking throughout the year.
Once you have shelled the cooled acorns, simply place them into a food processor and grind them into flour. Store in the fridge for short term use or freezer for use throughout the year.
Making Acorn Cookies
Once the acorns have been prepared and ground into flour, the nut flour can be used the same as you would any other nut flour.
My first recipe with acorn flour was to make cookies. The nut flour handled and processed no differently than almond flour or chestnut flour.
The cookies rolled out beautifully and baked to crunchy, crisp perfection!
Ingredients Needed
- Acorn flour – made from acorns in the yard
- All Purpose Flour
- Baking powder
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Sugar
- Butter
- Egg
- Confection sugar
- Cacao powder
Equipment Needed
- Boiling pot
- Baking sheet pan
- Food processor
- Measuring cup
- Measuring spoons
- Cutting board
- Chopping knife
- Oven
Roasted Acorn Flour Cookie Recipe
Course: Cookies, DessertCuisine: American24
servingsNutty, foraged, and in your backyard, roasted acorns turned into flour for the most delicious cookies.
Ingredients
Acorn flour – 1 cup
All purpose flour – 1 1/2 cup
Baking powder – 2 tsp
Baking soda – 1/2 tsp
Salt – 1/2 tsp
Sugar – 1/2 cup
Butter – 8 oz, softened
Egg – 1, slightly whisked
Dusting Powder
Cacao powder – 1 tbsp
Powdered sugar – 1 tbsp
Directions
- To prepare the acorns; boil for 5 minutes, drain and roast at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Peel and grind into flour.
In a food processor, place the dry ingredients and whisk. Add the butter and egg and pulse until the ingredients comes together into a ball. - Place the dough onto a sheet of parchment paper, roll into a log and place into the freezer for 20 minutes, or the fridge for overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 350
- Slice the dough into thin slices (1/4 inch), place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until slightly golden around the edges. Cool and dust with dusting powder.
- Mix the dusting powder together and sprinkle on the warm cookies.
Recipe Video
I believe the table... that place that draws people to gather, is the most powerful symbol of togetherness. All that happens before the table is set, the planning, the gathering, the preparing, are all an intricate part of the dance that create the mood of celebration to share with friends and loved ones.
While I applaud anything that brings this AMAZING and abundant resource to the forefront and lets people know that it can indeed be used as a food source today, just as it was used by indigenous peoples for thousands of years to help them survive very lean times when it was the only real, GOOD, source of fat, protein, carbs, several vitamins, …. you get my point, I’m concerned that some of your information, (though I’m certain its unintentional) is misleading at best and potentially dangerous at worst.
Though the leaching process does remove most of the bitter taste from the nuts, there is more to it than that, and it’s important that it be done correctly to avoid potential poisoning. The leaching process is done to remove toxic tannins from the nuts to make them safe to consume. It has the added benefit of removing some of the bitter flavor tannins cause.
You (and your readers) should make sure that you are doing the leaching process properly. There are many varieties of acorn. Very few are safe and sweet enough to eat without first removing the tannins. Some take longer and the process is harder than others but when done correctly all the varieties can be made safe and palatable.
There are surprisingly many resources online that will explain how to properly do this. I just want to make sure that everyone does their due diligence with their own research before they try to make and consume this wonderful treat. (And believe me, it is a real treat to the tastebuds with its rich nutty woodsy, and buttery flavor!) I highly recommend this nut to any forager, hiker, camper, survivalist! Be warned, once you’ve tried it out on the trail you’ll be hard pressed to NOT want to make it a part of your regular at home diet.
ALL the time it takes (and it DOES take time) to shell the nuts, remove the outer skins (high levels of tannins in the skins! I learned this the hard way!) leach the tannins, roast the nuts, process them into flour or meal (or eat them whole after roasting that way) and prepare what ever delight tickles your fancy, is BEYOND well worth it! Just do it safely, correctly, and don’t cut corners.
Ohhhh Tawnya! I so applaud your knowledge and am most grateful for your very insightful and informative information. Yes, you are correct. It is why I went through several preparatory steps before I ground the nuts into flour. It was a timely process and one I doubt many a reader will attempt, none the less I was over joyed to discover, first through the nudging of a grandson as to whether they were in fact edible, that they are, once properly prepared.
I follow much the same steps in preparing chestnuts, though not with the same concerns. Boiling the acorns, and then roasting them provided what was needed to prepare the nuts for culinary consumption. Thank you so much for taking the time to actually visit my garden, my kitchen my passion for a visual storytelling through my cooking and share your expertise with my readers! xo