Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Essene Bread (non gluten grains)


I make Essene bread in the dehydrator using non gluten grains. Soak Buckwheat, amaranth, quinoa, millet (all or some) in water over night. Drain, rinse and cover. Rinse two or three times a day until the grains are sprouted. (Depending on the room temperature, this can take two or three days).


Grind in a food processor or Vitamix.


For this bread, I added some soaked barhi dates and a little salt, nothing else. Leave out some of the sprouts to add in later for texture, if you like a more rustica looking and feeling Essene bread.
Turn out the dough on a teflex sheet and form into shape.
I also wanted it to have a sourdough flavour so I dehydrated it first at 105 degrees F for the afternoon, then at 100 degrees F overnight, turning it back up to 105 in the morning. Imagine hot desert winds several thousand years ago.

You can see part of a date near the center of the bread. Dates are rough cut throughout. The sourdough taste is subtle. The whole grains in the bread give it a crunch but the center, like all Essene breads, is soft. Delicious with raw butter.

It was interesting to see that after all of the green smoothies and other raw food we were not so enamored with bread as we used to be, even if it was low temperature dehydrated, living Essene bread.
Some was put in the bread box and promptly forgotten about. The crackers, made a little thicker, are a great base for an open faced sandwich or bruschetta.

1 comment:

  1. I made this bread before I went to a completely raw diet. Although this was much healthier for me to eat than cooked bread with wheat, I found that these grains were only marginally healthier for me. I'm so much healthier since I stopped eating these grains altogether and began making flat breads and crackers with flax, zucchini, walnuts and many other vegetables. They are so much more delicious too! I still grow quinoa, but more for the leaves, to use in smoothies and make crispies, and for the beautiful flowers. I leave the seeds for the birds to enjoy now.

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