My friend Paul eats nothing but healthy, organic food and he’d rather cut off his finger than have a piece of ordinary bread. He eats only sprouted wheat bread with dried fruit, seeds or nuts.
He pays $10 for the tiniest loaf so I thought I’d give it a try using my Thermomix. I didn’t make the same bread he buys for my first loaf but I will next time. This week it was all about learning to sprout the wheat. I should have waited longer but by the time I saw the little tails (and I do mean little) it was nearly midnight. I wasn’t waiting any longer.
Why sprouted grain? It’s the in thing for folks on a healthy eating journey. Wheat berries that you can buy in any organic food shop are seeds that you could pop in the ground and grow wheat. We’re not going to use any dirt but only sprout the wheat before making it into bread.
When the shoot emerges, it uses some of the starch inside the seed as fuel and it increases its other nutrients such as protein, vitamins and minerals. Frankly, the research I’ve done is that the extra protein is next to imaginary and the extra vitamins are only available if you eat the wheat raw. Sprouted wheat is the whole grain and eating that is always going to be better for us and the taste of this bread was really good.
The instructions I found were to put 2 cups of wheat berries or wheat berries and flax seed (linseed) together and soak for 12 hours. I didn’t have any flax (linseed) and the organic store was out. I went all wheat but added sunflower seeds and pepitas in the bread.
Once the soaking is over, drain, rinse and wait for sproutage. (Sproutage isn’t a word??)
Three times a day the grain needs to be rinsed and drained and then once the tails are almost the length of the grain, it’s bread making time. You can make this bread the conventional way because I used the sprouted wheat whole along with the bread and wholemeal (whole wheat) flours.
My next bread will be the Ezekiel bread with only sprouted grains and no flour or yeast but I’ll add walnuts and Medjool dates to it. Fingers crossed on that one.
- 2 teaspoons yeast
- 200ml warm water
- 1 teaspoon honey
- 1 teaspoon treacle
- 50ml apple juice
- 100 grams toasted sunflower seeds
- 50 grams toasted pepitas
- 225g sprouted grains
- 50ml sunflower oil
- 300g bread flour
- 75g wholemeal (whole wheat) flour
- 1½ tsp salt
- In the Thermomix add the water, treacle, honey and yeast into the water and stir for 3 minutes at 37C on speed 2.
- Add the remaining ingredients and mix for 7 seconds on speed 7. Then knead for 2 minutes.
- Place in an oiled bowl, cover with a damp towel and let rise for 45 minutes.
- Grease a bread tin and line with baking paper.
- Punch down the bread dough and roll into a shape that fits the pan.
- Let rise for about an hour, covered with the damp towel until the bread reaches the top of the pan.
- Preheat oven to 220C/425F
- Brush the top of the bread with water and bake for 20 minutes.
- Reduce the temperature to 180C/350F for 40 more minutes.
- Remove from the baking pan and cool on a rack. Try to wait until the bread is fully cool before cutting.
- Line a large (1.5-litre) loaf tin with nonstick baking paper. Flour a worksurface, then pat the dough to about the length of the tin and three times its width. Roll up the dough tightly, place it seam-side down in the tin, then punch it down to firm it. Leave, covered, for about an hour, until the loaf has risen by about a quarter to a third.
- Preheat oven to 220C (200C fan-assisted)/425F/gas mark 7. Brush top of loaf with water, bake for 20 minutes, then drop the temperature to 200C (180C fan-assisted)/390F/gas mark 6 and bake for 30 minutes longer. Remove from the tin and cool on a rack.