Walnut and date sprouted wheat essene bread, now that’s a recipe title for you. When you read those words, you know exactly what’s in there. Okay, I left out filtered water to sprout the grain in but that’s it. I followed the healthy folks method of nothing but sprouted wheat, dates and walnuts.
When I sliced the bread and passed it around to my two friends who eat only bread like this, their eyes were gleaming. “It’s better than the bread we buy, Maureen!” (as if they were surprised?)
With that recommendation I took a big bite and thought, “Blechhh!!” It WAS good in a cakey/bready sort of way but it needed salt. It begged for salt.
“No, Maureen, that’s just your salt-driven palate, you don’t need salt. We both think this bread is perfect and will eat the entire loaf,” Madonna said. And they did!
All I could think of was, ‘pass the salt shaker.’
Then I did what you’re all thinking I did. I slathered it with salted butter and I was in heaven. I was right, it needed salt. I don’t know what salt would do to the baking process but I’ll try it the next time I take 3 days to prepare a loaf of bread.
- 2 cups wheat kernels (wheat berries)
- ½ cup rye kernels
- ⅔ cup chopped dates (chop before measuring)
- ½ cup chopped walnuts
- Add the wheat and rye to a large bowl and pour in enough filtered water to rise a few inches over the grain. Stir to ensure all the grain is wet. Leave for 12 hours.
- After 12 hours, drain the grain and rinse with filtered water and rinse twice a day until the grain has sprouted. (tails as long as the grain) This can be as quick as 2 or as long as 3 days depending upon the room temperature.
- When grain has sprouted, grind it in a meat grinder, food processor, Vitamix or Thermomix along with ⅓ cup of chopped dates. Grind until the mixture looks like bread dough - it will. I needed to add a tablespoon or two of filtered water to get the right consistency.
- Add the remaining dates and nuts, mix well and leave for at least one hour, no more than 2.
- Preheat oven to 125C / 250F
- Pour into a greased bread tin and bake in the oven for 3 hours.
- Turn off oven and leave until oven is cold. I made mine at night and left it in the oven all night and ate it for breakfast.
- Remove from pan and slice.
- Keep in the refrigerator if you're not going to eat it all in a day or so as there are no preservatives.
Just a quick update on John’s father. He’s all settled in to his suite at the nursing home. All of his things are in their proper place and his computer works fine, his DVD player can belt out opera music as loud as he wants it and all is well. All except…. “Maureen, I ate all the granola bars you gave me, is it possible to get some more?” I thought that I could slip in a cheap batch of cookies or brownies but no, the expensive, over the top granola bars are what must be made. I’ve just come back from the supermarket $30 lighter and the granola bars will be delivered tomorrow.
If granola bars can make a 93 year old happy in a nursing home, I can certainly make them. Apparently all those oats keep the system going, if you know what I mean.