Bark Kitchen – From The “Emergency Kitchen” To The Gourmet Kitchen

Bark cuisine? I'm sorry, what? Have you already cooked with tree bark? Have you ever eaten tree bark? At first they will answer with a NO, but after thinking about it for a while, this NO will turn into a “YES” and they will even say that this bark tasted delicious!

We season many dishes with cinnamon, especially during the Christmas season. Cinnamon is the wonderfully aromatic bark of the laurel plant called Cinnamomun.“Fohra bread alleviates hunger” is one of the many popular sayings that tell of the ancient use of tree and bush bark in the kitchen.

Which Barks Do You Use And How Do You Harvest Them?

Barks from fruit trees such as apples, pears, plums, from fruit bushes such as gooseberries, currants or from birch, beech, linden, pine, fir, maple, rose or willow can be used for cooking.

We use existing resources for the bark flour - when we cut back trees or bushes in spring and autumn, we prepare the bark flour from the branches left over from the cutting. If branches have been broken by storms, we can process them into flour or if trees/bushes have been felled, we can use them to make bark flour.

Production Of Bark Flour

Bark flour can be made very easily and quickly. Young, thin branches are best suited for this. These are quicker to process and have a sweeter taste.

These branches are left to dry for 1 to 2 days at room temperature, then cut into 0.5 cm pieces, which are placed in a coffee grinder and crushed until a powdery consistency is achieved.

The bark powder is then sieved through a fine sieve. Sieve the sifted bark powder a second time through a fine sieve and the bark flour is ready. This can now be used for baking bread, for pasta dough or as a flour substitute for cooking.

Ingredients

The cambium, which lies directly under the bark, is the tree's nutrient highway. It contains valuable ingredients such as vitamin C, calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium, sugar and phosphorus.

What Does Tree Bark Taste Like?

Birch bark adds a peppery note to cooked dishes. If you roast birch bark in butter or other fat, it develops a nutty taste. Beech bark was used in many dishes because of its neutral flavor.

Linden bark tastes sweet/sweet and has a gelling property due to its mucilage. Fir bark has an intense lemon flavor, while poplar tastes like blue cheese.

Beech Bark Baguette

Ingredients:

• 50g beech bark flour (½ handful of beech bark twigs)
• 180g flour
• Pinch of salt, pinch of sugar
• ¼ cube Germ
• 130ml lukewarm water

Make flour from the beech branches as described above. Mix this bark meal, flour, sugar and salt together, crumble in the yeast and add lukewarm water. Mix everything well until the dough comes away from the edge of the bowl.

Cover with a damp cloth and let it rest for about two hours.

Preheat the oven to 90°C.

Place the dough on a floured work surface and shape into a baguette.

Then lift it onto a tray lined with baking paper, score with a knife, cover with a cloth and let it rest until the oven has reached a temperature of 200°C.

Push the baguette into the tube. Pour some water into an ovenproof dish and place it on the bottom of the stove.

Bake the baguette until golden brown - about 30 minutes.

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