I plan to occasionally share my passion for natural foods foraging on this site; however, I don’t want this to become my primary focus, as I am no expert. I do see foraging as an excellent way to connect with local nature, and so promote it I will! My goal will be, as always, to share my personal encounters with the natural world as inspiration for you to seek out your own encounters. I will always provide a caveat, a caution to explore carefully and wisely. This is especially important when it comes to natural foods foraging. Fortunately for all of you, I’ll be focusing on easy to find, easy to identify, and always safe and healthy foods. Acorn bread fits that description, except that it is in no way easy to make. In fact, I had planned to open this blog post by describing the making of acorn bread as the ‘hellish salt mine of wild food foraging.’ After doing this recently for the second time, I’ve discovered that it’s not as bad as I thought.
Not Just for Squirrels!
Acorns have to be one of the least known (at least to modern Americans) natural food resources. Yes, acorns are more than food for squirrels. Any hunter knows how important acorns and other native tree nuts – called mast by foresters – are to deer, turkey, and many other wild animals, in addition to squirrels. Acorns were also a traditional source of food for Native Americans throughout North America, from New England to California. The species of oak tree varied from place to place, but native people always recognized that acorns were a rich source of protein and oils. Even after corn was introduced from Central America, and more people became semi-nomadic, settling into fixed communities to tend crops, acorns were still gathered during any year they were plentiful. Acorns possess a unique nutty flavor, similar to chestnuts, and were used by native peoples in stews, soups, baked into flatbreads, and even eaten whole.
My first experience with foraging acorns began during a walk through town with the dog back in the fall of 2021. I noticed an abundance of acorns littering the ground during my walk. As soon as I recognized the tree above as a white oak, I began collecting whatever I could stuff into my pockets. White oaks are one of the ‘sweet oaks’ as their acorns contain much less bitter tannins than red or black oaks. I had read about making acorn bread and decided then and there that I wanted to give it a try. I soon returned to the spot without the dog to gather more acorns.
After my first experience with gathering and processing acorns, I joked that I would probably never do it again. To my wife’s dismay, I did it again this year. The oaks here in the Midwest experienced what’s known as a ‘mast year,’ which simply means that they produced a bumper crop of acorns. It is speculated that this periodic abundance may occur as an attempt to overwhelm the many creatures who like to eat acorns, ensuring that the tree is able to successfully reproduce. Whatever the reason, the acorns, in all of their abundance, called to me, enticing me to fill my pockets during walks once again.
I am providing photos to help illustrate the process along with links to a couple of recipes, just in case you decide you have an abundance of time on your hands and are also willing to walk in the gnarled, calloused footprints of our ancestors. Making acorn bread requires that you first make acorn flour, and to do that will take you anywhere from two to five days. I’ve recently discovered that you can buy acorn flour from a company in California, but for God’s sake you’re not going to make meaningful connections to the world around you and learn valuable lessons in self-reliance by buying things from California, so just forget about that!
Acorn Flour Made Easy – NOT!
Here is the basic process I followed. I will also briefly mention other ways of doing this I’ve read about.
- Collect solid, un-cracked acorns and remove any caps remaining. In a good year, the ground underneath a large white oak tree should be littered with acorns sometime during September.
- Place them all into a 5-gallon bucket half full of water. Most of them should sink. Any that float are suspect and probably contain acorn weevil larvae. These rejects can be put out for the squirrels (if they want them, since they are picky too when it comes to acorns).
- Begin shelling your good acorns by crushing them just enough to crack the shell and allow you to pry out the nut meat with a knife. Good nut meat should be creamy-colored. Sometimes, a portion of the nutmeat is discolored or bad, so just cut away the bad portion and save the rest. This step is the most arduous of the whole process. If you were ambitious and collected a LOT of acorns, then you’ll be shelling acorns, one by one, for quite some time. Get a friend to help by bribing them with a share of the finished product. I have learned that it is best to do the shelling as soon after harvesting the acorns as possible—ideally within a day or two. Some will contain very small weevil larvae, and the sooner you crack them open and remove the useable nut meat, the more you will end up with. Also, many acorns begin to germinate in autumn, soon after hitting the ground. Don’t be alarmed by the small roots protruding from the acorns you collect.
- Place all of your nutmeats into a clean 5-gallon bucket or large basin, covering them with clean, cold water. They will need to soak overnight to leach out the tannins. The water should look like weak tea after several hours of soaking.
- Repeat the previous step over 4-5 days, changing the water after each night’s soaking. The water will eventually look less stained by tannins. Note that this 5-day cold water soak to remove the tannins can be shortened by boiling the acorns; however, this apparently removes a lot of the starches and oils from the nutmeats and alters the flavor. Make this an exercise in patience, and preserve all of the ‘acorny’ essence possible in those nuts.
- Place all of your nutmeats onto a baking sheet(s) and bake in the oven on low heat for a couple of hours. You want them dehydrated as much as possible but not roasted. When done, they will be hard and darkened on the outside, like a roasted coffee bean.
- Grind the dried nutmeats in a Vitamix blender (if you have one), a coffee grinder or a flour mill. Your finished product should resemble something between corn meal and whole wheat flour.
- I ended up with about 1 ½ cups of acorn flour from my first try. This proved just enough to make one loaf of acorn bread and one batch of acorn cookies. During my most recent effort, I made close to 3 cups of acorn flour. Most recipes I’ve found call for one cup of acorn flour.
Acorn flour possesses a unique, nutty aroma and flavor. Most of the recipes I’ve encountered call for using 50% acorn flour, combined with 50% wheat flour. You can also use almond flour (another tree nut flour). Just keep in mind that, for most people accustomed to baked goods made with wheat flour, texture is a key part of the enjoyment of these foods. Acorns contain no gluten, so they result in baked goods that are both dense and tend to fall apart easily. Adding some wheat flour (gluten) will improve the consistency and texture immensely. I also suggest adding honey or maple syrup to lend some sweetness to the baked product, but of course, this is a matter of preference.
Here are links to the two recipes I used most recently. There are other recipes you can find online; however, these are two of the better ones, in my opinion.
Manataka Acorn Bread: https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=1986852 Acorn Maple Shortbread Cookies: https://honest-food.net/acorn-maple-shortbread-cookies-recipe/