Half-and-Half Baking: Testing Hemp Flour in Scones, Shortbread and a Saturday Loaf
There is a specific kind of optimism that arrives with a new bag of flour. You picture yourself at the kitchen counter on a grey Saturday, radio on, tea going cold, producing something rustic and generous. Then you open the bag and find a powder that looks a bit like ground hazelnuts, smells faintly grassy, and behaves nothing like the Homepride you grew up with.
That was my introduction to hemp flour. Three bakes later — scones, shortbread, and a plain tin loaf — I have opinions, a few crumbs on the floor, and a working set of ratios. Here's what I found, plainly, without turning your baking into a lecture.
First, what's actually in the bag
Hemp flour is milled hemp seed, usually the press cake left after the oil has been squeezed out. That matters, because it means you're buying a by-product that's high in protein (often 30–40%) and fairly low in starch. Starch is what gives baked goods structure. Hemp flour has almost none, and it has no gluten whatsoever.
It also isn't a CBD product. There's no meaningful cannabinoid content in a spoonful of seed flour, and anyone selling it to you as a wellness shortcut is overselling a baking ingredient. Buy it because you like the flavour — nutty, slightly savoury, a bit like toasted sesame crossed with a green banana — and treat the rest as a bonus.
One practical note: defatted hemp flour is shelf-stable but goes stale faster than wheat. Buy small bags, keep them in a sealed jar away from the light, and move it to the fridge in summer if your kitchen runs warm.
The half-and-half rule
The single most useful thing I learned: never go 100% hemp flour. Not in scones, not in shortbread, not anywhere you want a crumb rather than a crumble. The sweet spot is roughly 20–30% of the total flour weight, with the rest made up by plain white flour, self-raising, or a decent gluten-free blend.
Above 30%, things get sandy. The dough stops holding together, the bake dries out within a day, and the grassy note starts to dominate rather than sit in the background. Below 15%, you may as well not bother — you'll pay extra for a flour you can't taste.
| Bake | Hemp share | Partner | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scones | 20% | Self-raising white | Add extra buttermilk, handle lightly |
| Shortbread | 25% | Plain white | Chill the dough firmly before cutting |
| Tin loaf | 25% | Strong white bread flour | More water, longer prove, denser crumb |
Hemp flour drinks liquid. Add an extra tablespoon or two per 100g of flour, and let mixed doughs rest for 20 minutes before shaping so the flour can hydrate properly. Skip that rest and you'll be tempted to add more liquid, which is how you end up with flat scones and a bad mood.
Scones: the forgiving test
Scones are the sensible starting point. They're quick, they don't care about neatness, and the savoury flavour of hemp flour suits them.
I used 200g self-raising flour, 50g hemp flour, a heaped teaspoon of baking powder, 50g cold butter rubbed in, a pinch of salt, and about 170ml buttermilk — more than my usual scone recipe, and rightly so. A quick mix to a shaggy dough, a light pat to about 3cm thick, cut straight down with a 6cm cutter, and 12–14 minutes at 200°C conventional (180°C fan).
They came out well. Slightly denser than a white-flour scone, a shade darker on top, with a savoury edge that made them excellent with mature cheddar and a bit of chutney. A cheese-and-rosemary version, with the herbs stirred through, was the best bake of the whole experiment.
The failure mode is overworking. Hemp flour has no gluten to develop, so there's nothing to gain from kneading and plenty to lose in texture. Handle it like you're mildly annoyed with it.
Shortbread: where it nearly works
Shortbread is a harder sell. Its whole charm is that sandy, buttery snap, and hemp flour already brings a sandy quality of its own. Push the ratio too high and you get something closer to a digestive than a shortbread.
My working version: 150g plain flour, 50g hemp flour, 100g cold butter, 50g caster sugar, a pinch of salt, and a teaspoon of cornflour to keep things tender. Pulse it to crumbs, bring it together, roll to about 1cm, chill for at least an hour, cut into fingers, and bake low and slow at 150°C fan for 25–30 minutes.
The verdict: genuinely good, but not a straight swap for a classic. The hemp adds a faint toasted note that plays nicely with the butter, and the colour goes a pleasing pale green-grey. Skip it in delicate vanilla shortbread, where the flavour clashes. It's better with dark chocolate, orange zest, or a little treacle.
A Saturday loaf
Bread is where hemp flour makes you work. I used 300g strong white flour, 100g hemp flour, 7g dried yeast, 10g salt and 260ml water — noticeably more water than the equivalent all-white loaf — and gave it a longer first prove.
The dough never got that glossy, stretchy feel. It tore more easily and rose less enthusiastically. The finished loaf was denser than usual, with a tighter crumb and a crust that coloured quickly, so I'd cover it with foil after 25 minutes next time. It made excellent toast, and it held up well under a thick layer of butter and Marmite. As a sandwich loaf, it was a bit worthy. As toast, it earned its place.
If you're baking gluten-free, use a commercial blend plus about a teaspoon of psyllium husk per 100g of flour, and expect to add more liquid again. Hemp flour works well in that context, but it isn't a substitute for a binder.
Reading the label without the sales pitch
UK bags tend to say either "hemp flour" or "hemp seed flour" — they're the same thing, and the second is the clearer description. Look for the protein figure and the fat content: a high-fat flour (whole seed, not defatted) tastes richer but turns rancid faster, so check the best-before date and buy accordingly.
Watch for blends sold as "hemp baking flour" that are mostly wheat or rice with a token percentage of hemp. The ingredients list will tell you the order of quantity, so a bag listing wheat first is a wheat flour with a guest appearance. None of this is a scandal, it's just worth knowing what you're paying for.
And if a label starts making claims about anxiety, sleep or pain, put it back on the shelf. That isn't what flour does, and a product leaning on those claims is usually charging you for the wording.
Where it earns a place
Hemp flour is a good ingredient with a narrow useful range. It shines in cheese scones, soda bread, savoury crackers and anything with oats or treacle in it. It's fine in a robust shortbread and passable in a toast-first loaf. It's a waste of money in delicate sponges and anything where you want a light, airy crumb.
Start at 20%, add more liquid than feels right, rest the dough, and don't expect it to behave like wheat. Then put the kettle on and eat the evidence.
