I am eating, at this very moment, a lovely slice of nice toast made from ** sprouted ** grains. 5 or 6 of them. I toasted it slowly for a long time and as a result it is quite crisp and tasty.
My question is about how this is accomplished. I’ve made bread. Many times. I’ve also eaten sprouts. I do not understand how one could become the other. On the ingredient list, “flour” appears nowhere, jsut “sprouted millet” “sprouted wheat” also spelt and a few other grains. No flour. Yeast, yes. No flour.
How do crushed sprouts rise like flour? What’s the dang deal?
Flour is made by grinding up wheat grains (or rye, millet, etc.). Sprouts are made by letting those grains, well, sprout. Basically the flour and the sprouts are made from the same thing, so what’s the problem?
Well, actually there are some problems. Sprouts have some enzymes in them that can interfere with the yeast. On the up side, the sprouts have a lot more vitamins than flour does. But if you really want a good explanation of how to make bread from sprouts, flour, or almost anything else that can be made into bread, I recommend The Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book. This is a recipe book worth reading even if you never plan to bake your own bread. If you want to bake real whole wheat bread, it is essential.
My specialty. Sprouted wheat bread is simply your favorite wheat bread recipe with the addition of any sprouted grains you have or make to add. There is indeed flour in the recipe, at least mine.
Now mind you, I have heard of 100% sprouted bread, but never had the pleasure.
I’ll usually start with an oatmeal based bread add any flours I want and before rising, add any sprouts I want or happen to have made in advance.
There is leavened bread made the regular way, flour and all, but with sprouted grains added.
Then there is bread made entirely of ground sprouted grains, no flour and no leaven. It is baked very slowly at low temperature. The loaf comes out heavy and dense, and very chewy. But good. Commercially, it’s sold under the name “Ezekiel Bread”; in fact it’s named after the chapter and verse in Ezekiel where the sprouted grain bread recipe first appears.
What sprouting does is break up the complex carbohydrates in the grain into smaller molecules of sugars, making it more easily digestible with less baking.
9: Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.
That was precisely the bread I was eating when created this thread! I was eating the sesame version, which I slow-toast in a toaster oven, making it nice and crisp. Yum.
I always heard of it called Essene bread, and it was one of my favorite foods when I could get it. Drizzled with a bit of honey. Heaven for the tastebuds. Here’s a recipie.
Yeah, actually Essene Bread was the one I was thinking of. It’s much denser and chewier than Ezekiel 4:9 Bread. It’s made entirely from sprouted grain and nothing else.
In the Qumran Scrolls of the Essenes was found a recipe for bread that involved invoking the Angel of Water to come and bless the grain so that it would sprout.