A visit to the flour mill
Image thanks to Est Ouest
From quiches to choux pastry, flour is definitely one of my staple ingredients (along with everyone else out there I'm sure). So when I was in Alsace before Christmas, I snapped up the opportunity to visit one of the region's artisan flour mills. What better opportunity to stock up on good-quality Alsatian flour for my festive season baking?
The mill that I visited is called the Moulin de Hurtigheim, where the current owners (the Becker family) have been producing flour for five generations. From pastry flour and organic blends, to flour specially crafted for baking, the flour produced at the Moulin de Hurtigheim is some of the finest in the region.
You can visit the mill's website to browse their recipes – including traditional spice bread and kugelhopf. The site is in French, but Google translate does a pretty good job ;)
Image thanks to Est Ouest
Marie from the lovely Est Ouest blog joined me (along with her iphone) and filmed a little snippet of our time at the mill.
http://vimeo.com/58502123
Many thanks to Marie for the lovely images and video, and to the team at Moulin de Hurtigheim for showing me around. If you'd asked me a year ago, I would never have thought that my work would lead me to the inner workings of a flour mill!