Collecting acorns and baking bread 🌰 Success!

After failing a couple of times over the years, we finally ate the acorns!

The successful attempt went as follows: 

This was a good year for acorns due to the rains. The live oaks were providing beautiful shiny acorns in piles. We visited a friend's property to collect fossils, but ended up collecting acorns instead!

Then we took them home and worked together to crack them in our stone mortar with our pestle. Rocko cracked them and Joy and I dug the acorn meat out. Then Rocko ground them in the mortar.

Then we placed the coarse acorn meal into masin jars with fresh water and caps. I poured out the water and replaced it multiple times a day for weeks until it was clear. Then I sampled some bits - still too bitter!!!

Turns out that we needed them to be a finer grind. So I cheated and put them into a blender. Then we kept up the water changes for a couple more weeks until it was clear.

Since we don't have a dehydrator and with cats around, didn't really have a place to lay out the meal to dry into flour that could be stored, I looked for a recipe that could handle the moisture.

A banana bread recipe fit the bill. We followed the directions and replaced the banana portion with the acorn meal. Then we cooked them as muffins. Half had chocolate chips and half did not.

The acorn meal turned them to a dark color and the flavor they added was similar to almond meal. The kids said they were the best muffins they ever ate. They were quite tasty, although they didn't stay moist on subsequent days. The kids still ate and enjoyed them though!

Lessons learned:

Grind them fine! 

Don't pick up acorns with holes!

Patience!