How to Add Extra Nutrition To Your Baking with Hemp
So, you’ve made a New Year’s resolution to get in the kitchen more, eat more nutritious food, cut back on crap and boost your diet. But now what? If you’re already thinking ‘this is too hard’ and it’s time to go back to your normal ways, stop! Adding extra nutrition to your baking with hemp doesn’t have to be a slog at all.
If you’re new to baking or cooking with hemp, it can be a bit daunting to know where to start. Luckily, we have a bunch of great recipes for you to sink your teeth into. But if you want to add hemp to your own recipes, sub the flour out for hemp flour or add some hemp protein, it’s not as easy as ‘this for that’.
The best thing to know before we get started is the power of hemp – heck, we rave on about it all the time. But that’s because it’s so good we can’t ignore it. Hemp is packed with healthy fats, a heap of plant protein and even fibre, vitamins and minerals, so no matter what you bake or cook with it, you’ll know you’re doing something great for you!
One of the main things to remember with hemp, is that it has a delicious nutty taste. This makes it not only perfect for sweet recipes, but it can add a great hit to savoury recipes too. Think bread, muffins, tortillas, pancakes, cookies and more. What hemp is not so great for is more refined baking - like pastry, soufflé etc.
Keep in mind though when you’re substituting ingredients in recipes that while we love baking using these methods, each recipe is different so you will definitely need to test and learn to find that sweet spot for each recipe.
Baking with Hemp Flour
When baking with hemp flour, sometimes it can be tricky to know how to add it into your favourite recipes. It’s packed with all those nutrients so it can be quite dense meaning the conversion isn’t always 1:1 with plain flour. Beginners with hemp flour might get discouraged by their recipes not rising properly or not being fluffy, but don’t worry because we have top secret baking tips for you.
The Half and Half Method
It may seem pretty simple, but to get that same soft density you’re used to in your baking, you can mix your flours together. This is a particularly good idea if you’re baking something that you need to be soft and fluffy (like our Hemp Crossed Buns, of course). Hemp flour is packed with so much nutty goodness that you’ll still get all the nutritional benefits from baking this way, and nail that perfect texture too.
Each flour you blend hemp flour with will add their own unique flavour to your recipe, so try a few out. Our favourite flours to blend with are…
- Plain flour
- Wholegrain flour
- Brown rice flour
- Almond flour
- Oat flour
- Cassava flour
- Coconut flour
The Cacao Method
If you’re whipping up some chocolate treats, or even using a recipe that you think would go well with a touch of chocolate, this baking method is for you! Rather than using half plain flour and hemp flour, substitute half cacao powder and hemp flour. For example, if the recipe calls for half a cup of flour, you could use ¼ cup cacao powder and ¼ cup hemp flour. The density of mixing the two will be perfect while giving you that perfect choc-hemp flavour combo. Win, win!
Baking with Hemp Protein
If you’re looking to up your protein intake even more, you might have toyed with the idea of baking with protein powder. Hemp protein is superior in the world of protein for many reasons, but mainly for its full amino profile meaning it can help support your body to absorb and use the protein easier. It’s also far more digestible than other sources of protein too which means it can get to work in your body FAST.
There are many protein recipes out there, but when it comes to playing around in your kitchen and subbing out flour for protein powder, a great place to start is to replace 1 cup of flour with 1/3 of a cup of protein powder. There may be some test and learn to start with, but you’ll quickly become a protein powder whiz.
Cooking with Hemp Seed Oil
We’ve said it once and we’ll say it again, we love Hemp Seed Oil! Not only is it good to ingest and has a bunch of health benefits that come along with that, but you can apply it topically to your skin too (more on that later).
What some don’t realise, is that it’s not recommended to cook with Hemp Seed Oil as you would with any old oil. Because Hemp Seed Oil has a lower smoke point than others, it’s not great to be heated and used for frying and sautéing. Instead, try these:
Add Hemp Seed Oil into the mix
Try Hemp Seed Oil in your recipes for an extra nutty hit and of course, all the nutritional perks too. Think smoothies, acai bowls, protein shakes (with hemp protein, of course), dips, hummus and soups.
Use Hemp Seed Oil as a drizzle
Top off your salads, drizzle roast veggies when they come out the oven or even on top of a stir fry!
Let your skin soak it up
You can use hemp seed oil topically on your skin as a daily moisturiser to firm and rehydrate your skin, but also try it on your hands, feet and whole body. It’s great for those with dry, itchy skin or eczema as it can help repair damaged skin too. You could even whip up our Charcoal Hemp Face Scrub for a hydrating and anti-inflammatory Saturday night in with the girls!
Need to get down and dirty in the kitchen with hemp? Get your hands on our Hempy & Healthy Bundle for everything you need to be a kitchen whizz in no time!
Written by Creath Creative
