Hmmm, I have made my second loaf of sprouted wheat bread, and the romance is wearing off. I am already on to plans of making it how I want to, tossing nutrition and tradition to the wind.
My last loaf was prepared in the following manner.
Ingredients
2 cups organic hard wheat berries
a bunch of water for soaking and rinsing
1 teaspoon salt
Preparation
1) Soak the berries in a generous bowl, all day, in cool water, covered with a plate or cloth.
2) In the early evening, drain the berries, rinse, and drain again. Leave at room temperature, covered. Before going to bed, repeat rinsing, draining etc.
3) The following morning the berries should have sprouted between 1/16 to 1/8 of an inch. If not, but you can see little pale bulges of potential sproutage happenning, rinse, drain, etc. Check again in a few hours. If nothing has occurred, (no bulging), and your house is warmer than freezing, perhaps there is something wrong with your berries. Toss the lot and find a new source.
4) Once you have the required sproutage, turn your oven to 325. Dump the berries into your food processor bowl, using the steel knife, and buzz them until you have a mushy kind of dough that makes a little bit of a ball (more like a wet lump that runs around the center post of the steel blade)in your processor bowl. I didn't want to break up the gluten that formed, so I did not process the dough to the stage where the dough formed a ball and ran around the bowl. I also think the dough is too wet for this kind of thing anyway.
5) Line a small loaf pan with parchment. I used a 9 1/2" by 3 1/2" by 2 1/2". Bake the loaf for 45 minutes, ( I baked mine for an hour by mistake and the bread was fine, but the interior got too hot - I'm sure the bread had no nutritional value, but tasted fine.)
Cool and eat.
I have sliced my loaf and put it in the freezer. Still can't get the kids to eat it, so we are a bit slow at getting through the loaf. It doesn't help that I make yeasted bread that everyone likes to eat in great quantities.
That said, I shall be adding sprouted wheat berries to my bread on a regular bases. I think they will add a lovely natural sweetness and chewy-ness(is that a word?) to my already excellent recipe called Leftover Loaf. I know the name doesn't sound appealing, but it is a great loaf made with leftover porridge. Perhaps I will enter that recipe another day.
My last loaf was prepared in the following manner.
Ingredients
2 cups organic hard wheat berries
a bunch of water for soaking and rinsing
1 teaspoon salt
Preparation
1) Soak the berries in a generous bowl, all day, in cool water, covered with a plate or cloth.
2) In the early evening, drain the berries, rinse, and drain again. Leave at room temperature, covered. Before going to bed, repeat rinsing, draining etc.
3) The following morning the berries should have sprouted between 1/16 to 1/8 of an inch. If not, but you can see little pale bulges of potential sproutage happenning, rinse, drain, etc. Check again in a few hours. If nothing has occurred, (no bulging), and your house is warmer than freezing, perhaps there is something wrong with your berries. Toss the lot and find a new source.
4) Once you have the required sproutage, turn your oven to 325. Dump the berries into your food processor bowl, using the steel knife, and buzz them until you have a mushy kind of dough that makes a little bit of a ball (more like a wet lump that runs around the center post of the steel blade)in your processor bowl. I didn't want to break up the gluten that formed, so I did not process the dough to the stage where the dough formed a ball and ran around the bowl. I also think the dough is too wet for this kind of thing anyway.
5) Line a small loaf pan with parchment. I used a 9 1/2" by 3 1/2" by 2 1/2". Bake the loaf for 45 minutes, ( I baked mine for an hour by mistake and the bread was fine, but the interior got too hot - I'm sure the bread had no nutritional value, but tasted fine.)
Cool and eat.
I have sliced my loaf and put it in the freezer. Still can't get the kids to eat it, so we are a bit slow at getting through the loaf. It doesn't help that I make yeasted bread that everyone likes to eat in great quantities.
That said, I shall be adding sprouted wheat berries to my bread on a regular bases. I think they will add a lovely natural sweetness and chewy-ness(is that a word?) to my already excellent recipe called Leftover Loaf. I know the name doesn't sound appealing, but it is a great loaf made with leftover porridge. Perhaps I will enter that recipe another day.
posted by Underground Baker at 11:35 AM
6 Comments:
Well, I would have eaten the essene loaf with berries...alas. Good bread is wasted on youth. Oprah ahd this poor woman who had no energy and two doctors showed up at her house and made her get rid of all her cereal and bread anything with the label including "enriched" or hydrogenated oil, or corn syrup or salt. Three months go by and she looks like a movie star from not eating that food...oh, well okay...
Keep up some recipes. By the way, that chicken with thai red paste, cocnut milk and squash was fricking ridiculously GOOD!!!!
Welcome to blogland...and I hope this is lots of fun, at least you'll know where to find me and me you!!!!
Hello Underground Baker! Found you via the inimitable Candy Minx and thought I'd come and say hey. I like the name Leftover Loaf, actually. Nothing wrong with promoting the concept of Waste Not, Want Not. Very World War II, I know, but that's England for ya!
Welcome, Underground Baker. It's cool to see your bread recipes, even if they do sound way beyond my abilities. Enjoy your blogland life!
Hey Underground Baker,
Came via Mr. Anchovy. I'm a classicly trained but as yet unpapered pastry chef. My foodblog is ReTorte. I've been making artisan breads for a couple of years now and am having some success with it.
Candy: I saw that Oprah yesterday and was shocked that she'd lost so much weight in such little time. I'm not surprised at what they made her throw out, though, and I wasn't surprised to hear the doctor say that that's how most Americans eat.
Welcome Everyone!
Oh my goodness WC, are you saying you have two blogs. I feel like I can barely keep up with one. I shall dash over to your site as soon as I can.
Don't worry Candy, I will keep working on the "pure" loaf...I was having a bad baking day. It is incredibly addictive, the sprouted bread, perhaps as much as the evil bread.
Hey Asterisk, I really should simplify that last recipe to soak'em for a night, sit'em for a day then pound'em until mush. It is a bit silly to make such a fuss over something made of 3 ingredients!
Thanks for checking in Red. I make many loaves from leftovers. The curried yam bread was excellent - a double nasty for Candy - yams and flour, but ohh, so good.
Yep, I have two blogs. I don't know how I do it, either...
I added you to my ReTorte blogroll, so I can easily visit often.
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