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Baking with Ancient Grains
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Baking with Ancient Grains: Mediterranean-Inspired Recipes for Living Well

Author Maria Speck

This pathbreaking book encompasses a wide range of baking recipes with whole flours—from simple cookies, crackers, and cakes to flatbreads, glorious sourdough loaves, stunning tarts, and festive bakes—all while introducing a new balance in baking for modern palates.

Inspired by the bounty of the Mediterranean, Baking with Ancient Grains offers captivating contemporary recipes, showing how pleasure at the table can go hand in hand with a better diet.

This balance is rooted in three guiding principles: 

•Wholesome flours 
•Heart-healthy olive oil 
•Little to no sweeteners 

Comprehensive yet accessible, with an emphasis on helping novice bakers succeed, this book builds on the eating philosophy the author brought to her previous two award-winning ancient grains cookbooks.

The 75 nutrient-packed recipes, savory or just sweet enough, are tailored for today’s health-aware readers, using olive oil and trending flours including buckwheat, sustainable millet, and fiber-rich rye. Each chapter includes an introductory essay, and the recipes are accompanied by timelines, tips, variations, and baker's notes.

About The Author

Maria Speck is a veteran journalist and the award-winning author of Ancient Grains for Modern Meals and Simply Ancient Grains (both published by Ten Speed Press). Raised in Greece and Germany, Maria has a lifelong passion for whole grains and whole flours.
   Ancient Grains for Modern Meals received multiple awards, including the Julia Child First Book Award, The Health and Special Diet Award by the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP), and a Gourmand Award. Both The New York Times and The Washington Post named it a top cookbook, and Cooking Light magazine included it as one of their 100 best cookbooks of the past twenty-five years.
    Maria’s second book, Simply Ancient Grains, won an M. F. K. Fisher Award for Excellence in Culinary Writing from Les Dames d’Escoffier International. It was selected as a top cookbook by The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, and on NPR’s Here & Now.
    Maria has contributed to numerous publications in both the United States and Germany, including The Washington Post, Saveur, Gourmet, Eating Well, and Gastronomica, as well as to The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating. She also contributed to the multivolume Modernist Bread. Maria’s hometown of Cambridge, MA, has recognized her work with an honorable mention as a Food Hero.

  • Publish Date: October 13, 2026
  • Format: Hardcover
  • Category: Cooking - Methods - Baking
  • Publisher: Chelsea Green
  • Trim Size: 7 x 10
  • Pages: 336
  • US Price: $39.95
  • CDN Price: $53.95
  • ISBN: 978-1-64502-427-9
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Reviews

“Baking with Ancient Grains is a multisensory experience. I loved discovering a remarkable number of savory baking recipes and was tickled by the unexpected turns in quotidian bakes—teff in chocolate cake, eggplant in tarte tatin, sorghum in blondies. The book leans into health without being preachy and comes equipped with clear milling instructions and practical purchasing and storage suggestions. The photography is stunning and honest, depicting the textures and colors of whole-grain flours with rare accuracy. This is the kind of cookbook you’ll return to again and again. A whole-grain gem only a true practitioner like Maria Speck could have written.”—Roxana Jullapat, author of Mother Grains and Morning Baker

“What an enlightening book. If hitherto you thought flour was ‘just flour,’ this is the book for you. An opportunity to explore the intriguing world and nutrient density of heritage grains. Almost-forgotten flavors are now enjoying a welcome and delicious revival.”—Darina Allen, Ballymaloe Cookery School

“Baking with Ancient Grains makes healthier baking an alluring and attainable exploration of flavor, texture, color, and aroma. There is no one I trust more as a guide in this realm than Maria Speck.”—Ellie Krieger, RDN, PBS and Food Network host; two-time James Beard Award–winning cookbook author

“Maria Speck continues to dazzle and inspire us with her love, passion, and knowledge of whole and ancient grains. The irony is that her creativity elevates and reinvents what was once ancient into something new and exciting, as if discovered and tasted for the first time. She proves that the future of food lies in its past.”—Peter Reinhart, author of The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads, and Bread Revolution

“Maria Speck has done it again in her new book, Baking with Ancient Grains. A new, broad collection of outstanding and delicious recipes using traditional and underutilized grains. From small bites to sweets, cakes, snacks, and wonderful breads—they all await you. Your baking and your health will never be the same after using Maria’s new book.”—Daniel Leader, James Beard Award–winning coauthor of Bread Alone, Local Breads, Living Bread, and A Slow Rise; founder, Bread Alone Bakery

“In a world of ultra-processed food, this book will take you a few steps back in time to nourish your soul and give you some baking therapy you didn’t know you needed! With clear, knowledgeable guidance, Baking with Ancient Grains is a great addition to the bookshelf of any baker, pro or occasional. Bonne boulange!”—Richard Bertinet, The Bertinet Kitchen; author of Crumb, Crust, and Dough

“Maria Speck continues to raise the bar on baking with whole grains! Baking with Ancient Grains is essential for anyone seeking to innovate in their baking repertoire. The blend of cultural influences and dedication to quality invites the baking community to embark on a journey of discovery, embracing both the past and the possibilities of the future.”—Stephanie Swane, publisher, Modernist Cuisine’s The Cooking Lab

“Maria Speck does us all a great service in her new book, Baking with Ancient Grains—expanding our knowledge of humankind’s most important foods and making them fresh and new. With her innovative recipes, accompanied by exquisite photographs, Maria Speck makes ancient grains young, exciting, and delicious for today’s bakers.”—Bob Klein, founder, Community Grains

Author Bookshelf: Maria Speck

Baking with Ancient Grains