Singing Creek Farm

Freshly Milled Flour: Why It Matters (and How It Can Change Your Baking and Health)

Hello, friends!

I’m Danielle, and I run a small microbakery at Singing Creek Farm, our cozy homestead tucked into the Appalachian hills of East Tennessee. For nearly a decade now, I’ve been baking exclusively with 100% freshly milled grains – learning, experimenting, and slowly falling in love with this way of baking. Before that chapter of life, I worked as a professional cake decorator alongside my mom and even made a few TV appearances, before life gently nudged me in a new direction.

Baking with freshly milled flour has truly changed my life. As a mother, it brings me deep fulfillment to feed my family food I trust to truly nourish their bodies. As a baker, it makes me feel deeply connected to the way people have baked and eaten for most of human history. It’s my heart to help others experience that same confidence and joy in their own kitchens.

What Is Freshly Milled Flour?

For most of history, people consumed wheat products soon after the wheat berries were milled into flour. This wasn’t a trend or a health movement, it was simply necessary. Once milled, flour didn’t have the long shelf life we’re used to today. Without refrigeration or modern processing, flour would eventually go rancid, often within weeks. Because of this, bread and other wheat products were made fresh and eaten regularly. Ancient texts, including the Bible, frequently reference the importance of daily bread, and wheat was not viewed as something harmful or problematic – because it wasn’t!

A wheat berry – the whole grain that is milled into flour – is actually a wheat seed made up of three parts:

• The bran, the tough outer layer that protects the seed and provides fiber
• The germ, the part that can grow into a new plant and is rich in vitamins, minerals, and healthy oils
• The endosperm, the energy-packed center that provides carbohydrates, protein, and some vitamins

Together, these three parts form a nutritional powerhouse. Of the 44 nutrients required for human life, wheat berries contain 40. The four missing, vitamins A, C, B12, and the mineral iodine, are easy to add through other ingredients when baking. When you use freshly milled flour, your breads, muffins, and pastries can be both delicious and genuinely nourishing.

How Modern Flour Changed Everything

In the late 1800s, the invention of the steel roller mill transformed wheat processing. Millers discovered that removing the germ dramatically increased flour’s shelf life. Over time, the bran was also removed to improve appearance and storage, leaving only the endosperm. This remaining portion was often bleached to create the bright white flour that quickly gained popularity in both home and commercial kitchens.

This refined flour became the standard in the United States until World War II, when the U.S. military noticed that the wheat products being sent to soldiers were not adequately nourishing them. After investigation, the USDA determined that highly processed flour contained very little nutritional value. In response, they mandated in 1941 that wheat products be artificially enriched after milling. In the 1990s, folic acid was also added to help reduce birth defects.

This is the flour most of us are familiar with today: wheat with the bran and germ removed, then re-enriched with vitamins and minerals from external sources, and often bleached. Even whole wheat flour follows this same process, with only about 20% of the bran added back in. According to The Complete Book of Vitamins, modern flour contains 70–80% less nutrition than flour made from the entire wheat berry.

Why Freshly Milled Flour Isn’t Common Today

Freshly milled flour isn’t widely available because it simply doesn’t fit into our modern, commercial grocery system. It isn’t shelf stable enough to sit on store shelves for months or years. While a few mills still sell freshly milled flour, they are rare. For most people, the only way to access this nutrient-dense flour is to mill wheat berries at home.

And that realization, along with years of trial, error, and joy in my own kitchen, is what led me to write my cookbook.

An Invitation to Start Where You Are

Whether you’re brand new to milling or have been baking for years, my hope is that freshly milled flour feels approachable, not intimidating. Baking can be a full-sensory, grounding experience if you let it be. Slow down. Breathe in the aroma of fresh flour as it pours from the mill. Feel the warmth of the dough in your hands. And if something doesn’t turn out as planned, treat it as an opportunity to learn. A thoughtfully examined “failure” can teach us far more than effortless success ever could.

You’ve got this.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

If you’re curious about freshly milled flour but unsure where to begin, I created my cookbook, The Freshly Milled Kitchen: From Wheat Berry to Homemade Staples, to walk you through the process step by step. We start with choosing which wheat berries to start with, how to source them, and what equipment you need. As we jump into the recipes, I intentionally structured them to be approachable and progressive, helping you build confidence as you go. My goal is to equip you to replace store bought wheat products with nourishing, homemade versions – without it feeling overwhelming or out of reach.

If you’re ready to bring this way of baking into your own kitchen, I’d love for you to join me.

Happy baking,
Danielle Upshaw
Singing Creek Farm