So, ooops, I spent a small fortune on a big bag of Eden Valley Biodynamic Flour - at 50 bucks a bag, it's 30 more than we would normally pay for our unbleached bread flour. It was pay day and I was in a hurry and the guy at Wholefoods was like: 'This is the best flour evvvvvvaaaaaaaa' and I fell for his gushing.

I'd also been a little distracted by someone hear on Steemit (oh I'm soooo sorry I can't recall your name, and I can't find your comment - I promise it will come to me, but I'm in a rush to get back out into the garden right now!) who told me Australia was renowned for biodynamic flour farms. Really? That's pretty cool.

Biodynamic farming takes a holistic approach to organic farming. The whole land is considered an inter-related system, and the farming practice emphasise the idea of being self-sustaining, creating more nutritious and healthy plants and simultaneously healing the the earth, revitalising the soil, and enhancing the nutrition to the soil, plants and even livestock.

In an interview, Eden Valley Farms were asked what didn't go into your flours?

We’ve no need to add any “flour improvers” to our flour: no colourings or bleaching agents, no protein enhancers, no vitamin or mineral supplements, no preservatives. There’s just no need to add anything and doing so would deny people access to a natural and unadulterated food source. Our flour products cater for the home baker, so they aren’t overly-milled and blended and reformulated with additives to suit commercial baking processes. Further, biodynamic farming regulations mean that there are no synthetic chemicals involved in the crop growing and grain storage process, so there is no chance that any traces of synthetic herbicide, insecticide, fungicide, fertiliser or toxic fumigant chemicals are found on the grains or in the flour products. This also means that the farm is a much safer environment to work in than many conventional farms: mistakes and accidents with synthetic chemicals can’t happen.

Sounds awesome, right? But what difference did it make to the feel and the taste of the flour?

It made the bread baking process sexy again, that's what it did.

Just look at the sexy dough in the picture above. I couldn't take a photo of the bread mid knead as I didn't want my phone caked in flour. Doesn't it make you want to dip your fingers into it? Knead it's pliable deliciousness?

Maybe it's because I was enjoying a bit of my favourite reggae as I was getting into the dough.

But this bread smelt like honey and sunshine, rather than the white dust that flour normally resembles. I could almost close my eyes and see the wheatbelt in Western Australia and the breeze rippling the sun-licked field. It really smelt that good. The feel of the dough was different too, silkier and softer.

Last week I'd made a kick-ass cranberry, cacao and walnut bread, but Jamie can't eat walnuts, so I used essentially the same recipe for a linseed, sunflower seed, coconut and pepita loaf. If you'd like the recipe, just follow the instructions here and swap the ingredients over in relative proportions.

The bread even smelt amazing when cooking

Baked bread smells incredible anyway, but this literally filled the house with the most exquisite smell. I've never smelt bread like it - it was just totally divine.

Did it taste better, though?

Undoubtedly. I really didn't believe the guy at Wholefoods, but I'm going to make an out of the way drive by just to tell him that dammit, he was right. This brought breadmaking to a WHOLE new level.

Here's the other bread musings, if you're interested...

Walnut Cranberry and Cacao Sourdough
Keeping it Simple Sourdough Recipe

Would I bake with biodynamic flour again? In a heartbeat.

Please feel to upvote and resteem the shit out of this post so I can afford to do just that! If that fails, I'll have to go back to poverty flour again - sob. Once you've tasted gold dust, how can you eat anything but?