Teff

• Injera
• Hazelnut Muffins
• Grahams
• Date Nut Bread
• Brown Butter Scones

Unless you frequent Ethiopian restaurants, you’ve probably never heard of teff, let alone eaten anything made with flour ground from this tiny grain. Teff flour is fine and grainy, with a malty aroma and a pale cocoa color. This distinctive maltiness makes teff flour a great match for nuts and dried fruit. It is a particularly fine flour, so pairing it with wheat flours gives me the crumb that I look for in my recipes.

An obvious starting place for experimenting with teff was injera. These are traditional Ethiopian flatbreads, similar to crêpes, that are used as both plates and utensils, with bits torn off the edges as the whole dish is eaten by hand. Since teff does not have any gluten, teff flour is mixed with whole-wheat flour into a starter and fermented overnight, sometimes a day or two longer. This brief fermentation gives injera their distinctly sour taste.