Wild Turnip Bread

Wild Turnip Bread

Creates 2 Large Loaves or 3 Medium Loaves.

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 cups baking flour (all purpose)
  
  
• 1 cup turnip flour (see addendum after bread recipe)
  

• 2 tbsp or 2 packages bread yeast
  
  
• 2 tsps salt
  
  
• 4 tbsp shortening
  
  
• 2 1/2 cups warm water
  
  
• sweetener to taste (optional, typically 2 to 4 tbsp, I prefer local raw wildflower honey)
  

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Combine dry ingredients and mix well.
   
   
2. Once dry ingredients are sifted completely together, add in the wet ingredients as you continue to mix. Using an electric mixer makes this easier and more efficient.
   
   
3. Once fully blended, put baking flour on a board or a counter to create a kneading space.
   
   
4. Pour dough out onto floured counter or board and begin kneading for at least 20 minutes.
   
   
5. Set in a room temperature space for 1 hour with a clean towel over it. Let it rise.
   
   
6. Punch down the loaf after an hour.
   
   
7. Work the dough well between your hands to form into loaves.
   
   
8. Place the dough into the appropriate sized greased loaf pans. Alternatively, place on a baking board for an “artisan” style loaf.
   
   
9. Cover loaves with a clean towel and let rise another hour.
   
   
10. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
    
    
11. After loaves have risen for that hour, place loaves in oven and bake for about an hour. Golden-brown to brown on top when its done!
    

Addendum:

Turnip Flour:

Not something you can typically find at your local grocery store, but not that hard to make. Wild turnips are common throughout the majority of North America, as well as multiple other countries. Once harvested, they can be hung as a whole to dry,, on a piece of cordage strung across a dry corner of the house. Once fully dried, they can be then ground into a fine powder and stored in an air-tight receptacle that you can now label “WILD TURNIP FLOUR”. I find an electric coffee grinder works the most efficiently for grinding up dried ingredients into the consistency I desire.

 

side note: Feel free to contact me and I can help you source the tools and ingredients for this recipe.

 

Hi Justin

Just to clarify the wild turnip discussed is Arisaema atrorubens / arisaema triphyllum also know as Jack in the pulpit? Just wanted to check because as usual my reference books vs google don't agree on the facts.

And it can only be eaten after being completely dried correct?

 

Nada! I'm actually talking about Pediomelum esculentum - or prairie turnip!

 

LOL would be one not found near me. Still appreciate the recipe, will just experiment with other types of "flour" that can be foraged around here.

 

As far as Canada goes, it is only found in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.

 

i would go for wild Camus bulbs.

 

Or, also delicious, the Jerusalem artichoke, aka, "sunchoke". @Rebecca