Daring Baker February 2012: Failed Sprouted Wheat Quick Bread...

The Daring Bakers’ February 2012 host was – Lis! Lisa stepped in last minute and challenged us to create a quick bread we could call our own. She supplied us with a base recipe and shared some recipes she loves from various websites and encouraged us to build upon them and create new flavor profiles.

Quick breads. I am well acquainted and quite friendly with these easy to mix, quick to bake members of the carbohydrate family, though by looking at this post you may wonder if I've ever baked one in my life. Lately, I have really re-examined my grain consumption, for no other reason than that I felt I was beginning to bake, eat, and repeat too often for my own good. I am curious by nature, and quick breads are easy game for someone like me who can't follow a recipe to save her soul. Usually it turns out well, but in this case, I was set up for a fail of near epic proportion.

Earlier in the month, a friend sent me a link to these pumpkin-millet muffins, and I thought I would (not only procrastinate until the last second as usual, but also) make a beautiful, Daring Baker worthy adaptation using no refined sweetener and only sprouted wheat. Does a sugar-free quick bread made entirely with sprouted wheat flour exist anywhere other than in my mind? I’m not sure. When Googling for answers, I found nothing that looked like what I was after. I did find several sources claiming that sprouted flour can be used 1:1 for regular flour, which after several sprouted flour baking sessions I now question wholeheartedly.

This month was filled with pangs of guilt over my return to sugar; I tried desperately not to bake solely for the sake of baking. I made muffins for others and for my son’s school snacks, but other than sourdoughs (and one batch of peanut butter kiss cookies for my Valentine), I did pretty well. That unfortunately meant that I also left my challenge quick bread until almost the last moment. I wouldn’t say it’s completely inedible, but it does give new meaning to the phrase “bread bowl”.

I am convinced that wheat gluten changes when the grain is sprouted. I don’t find a whole lot of concrete evidence to back up my assumption, but did read this interesting article written by Dr. Vicki Peterson. In it, she says that sprouted grains that contained gluten prior to sprouting still contain gluten after sprouting (this is an article written for gluten intolerant people), but also that grass of sprouted grains are considered gluten-free for the first 10 days of their life. I didn’t grow my sprouted wheat to the point of grass, but it is curious.

Sprouted flour seems to do well in things that are tender by nature, I’ve had great luck making it into crackers and waffles, even cookies benefit from the tender-sweet nature of sprouted wheat. This bread could have failed because I also used brown rice syrup instead of sugar, and a good amount of gluten-free millet. Adding insult to injury, I had even soaked and tried to sprout my millet, which I found out (3 days of waiting in) would not sprout because it was already hulled...

Half of the bread stayed in the pan when I tried to flip it out, and when I took a taste, it was nearer to savory than sweet. It reminded me exactly of a spoon bread, or cornbread stuffing, but lacked sufficient flavor to convince me I'd want to eat it on it's own. It was surprisingly moist, and texturally very interesting. I let it sit on the counter for several hours wondering what to do with it.

Meanwhile, I mixed up my favorite graham cracker recipe using 100% sprouted flour - just wondering if they would fare the same disastrous fate as my quick bread. The dough was very soft (I let it sit for a full day in the fridge before even attempting to roll it out) and delicate, and spread much more than conventional flour grahams do. They needed an extra 5 minutes or so in the oven, had to cool completely on the pans, and then finally crisped up enough to be considered crackers. But like most sprouted wheat things, the flavor was good enough to warrant all of the extra monkeying around. Sweet, earthy grahams of sprouted wheat are worth fiddling with - but keep in mind the dough does not at all act like ones made with conventional white or wheat flours.

After some time had passed, I decided that if I did not live in a household of picky eaters, my failed pumpkin millet bread would definitely be a good candidate for new life. I called a friend, and asked if she'd be game for some experimental stuffed peppers. She agreed, and I popped the whole "loaf" of depressingly soggy bread into the freezer until next week when I have more time to play. I plan to fry up ample amounts of onion and leek and add some sausage, and see if I can't love this accident if it's doctored up and called by another name. Perhaps I'll even like it well enough to tell you more about it - only time will tell.

As for sprouted wheat baking? I am thoroughly bewildered, but I'm not giving up. There must be an answer to my questions, and there is most likely a learning curve that I wasn't expecting. It's funny that one of our easier Daring Baker challenges turned out to be one of my only full-out fails, but it's ok. It's another good challenge of trying to make something out of nothing that lies ahead.

Bread, it calls me...

It's been awhile since I've expanded my bread making abilities. I don't really feel stagnant in making the same bread most of the time, since my bread is reliable and durable, it makes good toast, french toast, and is stellar on the baking day. Leftovers not gone at the end of a week become powdery bread crumbs, to make cakes like I recently told you about, or are included in other things. I have to say that I am proud of my bread, and the year that it took me to get to what I considered to be the best I could produce at home and on my own.

Several weeks ago now, I gave some starter to sL, and he asked me all kinds of questions which I bled out profusely onto a sheet of notebook paper before realizing that I had written a post all about it. In him, I saw everything that I loved about bread and life in general - that twinkle that comes when something profound is realized and undertaken. Talking briefly that day with him about bread made me feel all that more "honeymoonish" about my own bread making journey, and I could tell that my starter fell on a common soul who was not going to easily tire of experimentation.

Giving out starter is a unique feeling. It is not unlike sending my kid to Kindergarten and hoping that he behaves and is well liked, that he is all of the things a parent hopes for as he takes that first step out of the kitchen and into the real world. I gave some to another new acquaintance in January, a girl who was like minded and on her own journey of real food experimentation. She is mathematical in her approach to research, and she's lucky since her husband is equally curious about wild bread. He balances her calculated research with gonzo throw-it-togetherness. I can't wait to see what is new with her - and hopefully we'll meet again soon to discuss.

Tartine dough.

Maybe a week or so ago, sL sent me a Vimeo link to Chad Robertson's Tartine Bread, another bread book that I was aware of, but dismissed before ever having looked at it. I watched it before bed one night, and I swear I dreamed of it, specifically of Chad's hands swiftly forming wet dough, criss-crossing himself rhythmically to zip it up into a well made package. I rewound that part and watched it 3 times. The next day, I put in a library hold on Tartine Bread, which I picked up on Monday - and now I've read about another man's journey to find what he does best in life, what makes him happiest and fulfilled.

Questions plague me, now that I'm heading, faster all the time it seems, towards middle age. I can't run off to France and apprentice in bread. I can't live on 5 hours of sleep a day for as long as I used to, and I have family commitments that prevent my daydreams from popping up into reality. Or do I just not want it bad enough? Am I not motivated enough? The seeds of self-doubt are heavy at times, especially when all the work I've done for the past 6 years shows no monetary gain, no concrete "investment for the future" - save perhaps the instillation of good, slow food on my 5 year old son.

final shaping.

I know I could be quite happy as a baker. Bakers spend a lot of time alone, they work odd hours and are obsessive, exacting and practical - all things that suit me well. The thought of baking everyday is kind of scary though, could I manage buckets of dough nearly alone - how and where would I learn the secrets of ovens - and could/can I build my own this summer in my yard and maybe at least have a neighborhood bartering tool. I am serious about the bread oven. (Check out these pictures one of my flickr contacts built in Madison: an inexpensive to make, mass heat oven, that if I can manage it, I will build in my backyard this year.)

As I tend to dream without acting, my bread oven may or may not be built. As I have increasing worries over my lack of income, I may or may not actually look into getting an odd-hour job preferably baking the way I like to bake. Since I dream big, I dream that the State of Wisconsin would just certify my clean kitchen and let me sell out of my house so I could combine two of my deep joys: baking and home.

When I read about the journeys of others, I know that no two journeys can be the same. My bread will never be like anyone else's, and that is the thumbprint of the Maker that I appreciate the most. Now that I move on into high-hydration bread territory, I know my learning curve is steep - I expect I'll fail quite a few times. This first loaf, made as directed in Tartine Bread was quite good however. It was a huge bread that spread out more than I thought when I thought I'd improvise a iron dutch oven lid over a baking stone. When the bread hit the stone, it grew too fat around to fit the oven over the top, and so I didn't have the steam-crackled crust I was after. The interior was maybe just a little wetter than I liked, but the flavor was really good, especially with a spoon of limey rum cherry preserves over the top... It wasn't a failure, but I'm looking forward to round two.

I cut the loaf in half so I could give some away - hoping for my next installment of wet-dough baking sooner than next week. A passage of Chad Robertson's book already stuck in my head as he described his test bakers as having "gone rogue" after a short amount of time, tweaking his initial instruction until the bread was their own. I'm sure that will happen to me as well, maybe in the fashion that the rest of my life has already taken. Maybe I have been rogue by being responsible and respectful, by doing what I thought I should do instead of taking more risks. But in a way, I don't think I'd ever have discovered my great and profound love of bread had I not stayed home these past years. I have not given up on trying to figure it out, so that qualifies me as someone who follows through on daydreams. I would not have had such a calling when I was younger, I did not want to be anywhere near a kitchen when I was 20.

And really, who knows where I'll end up with this love of bread. Shoveling smaller loaves into and out of my backyard oven? Baking at midnight for a little cafe somewhere? For now, my time is mine and I do what work that seems practical and rewarding to me. That puts fresh bread on my table, and words in my heart.

Cake Made from Crumbs... and Parsnips.

I love to be able to make something from nothing, and when the something turns out to be a cake, I like it even more. Of course, this cake isn't really made from nothing, but it is a clever form of recycling since it uses dried sourdough bread crumbs instead of flour. It has a few other staple ingredients too, but the premise of making flour out of flour is just plain genius.

It's not my idea, but rather it belongs to Susan at Wild Yeast. This cake was originally a carrot cake, and the first time I made it I told nearly everyone I knew about it. It had loads of cardamom, it kept well for a week, it was the most exotic thing to bake something out of nothing. These were the talking points that kept me fascinated with a more healthful version of dessert, a cake that was unusual enough to stand out amongst its more refined relatives.

Over the weekend, I planned a dinner around more of the Volger veggie burgers that I'm still so obsessed with. I had decided that I wanted to showcase this bread crumb cake, but that I already had too many carrots in my dinner plan. Enter the parsnip: earthy, slightly vegetal, kind of sweet, and plays well with spices. I did some minor swapping, pineapple for pears, cardamom for ginger and suddenly a new version of bread crumb confection was done. The best thing is, I'm now dreaming of vegetable cakes in rainbow colors, bread crumb cakes made with earthy beets or sunny sweet potato. Maybe even a celery root cake. That will really get them talking...

I'd imagine you could use any grate-able root vegetable in this cake, and then choose spices to complement. I used an 8 inch springform pan, since you really do need to be sure the cake tin you use is at least 2 inches tall. Next time, I'll use some fresh ginger in this as well, the spiciness seemed to wear off after a day or two using the powdered spice. If keeping the cake longer than 2-3 days, I'd recommend putting it in the refrigerator - it's very moist in the center. I bake this cake by metric weigh measure, a good conversion tool can be found here.

Sourdough Bread Crumb Parsnip Cake (adapted from Wild Yeast)

• 172 g. fine sourdough bread crumbs (about 1 c.) (I grind to nearly a powder in my VitaMix)
• 1 t. baking soda
• 1/2 t. cinnamon
• 1/2 t. nutmeg
• 1 1/2 t. ground ginger
• 1/4 t. cardamom
• pinch of kosher salt
  
• 87 g. butter, room temperature
• 86 g. dark brown sugar
• 86 g. sugar
• 2 eggs
• 98 g. plain yogurt (I use my homemade, which is the thickness of buttermilk, so I'd assume that would also work)
  
• 2 t. vanilla extract
• 144 g. grated parsnip
• 131 g. pureed pear (about 1 whole canned pear, drained)
  
• 100 g. walnuts, toasted and chopped

Preheat oven to 350. Butter an 8 inch cake pan that is at least 2 inches deep.

In a small bowl, sift bread crumbs together with dried spices and salt. In another small bowl, combine yogurt with vanilla.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or in large bowl if working by hand), beat butter with sugar for several minutes until lightened. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating one minute after each addition. (Scrape down sides of the bowl as necessary.) Add the dry ingredients alternately with the yogurt/vanilla mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. (The mixture will look "curdled".)

Spread the batter into the prepared pan, smooth down the top and bake for about 50 minutes until a tester inserted near the center comes out nearly clean, and the cake begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Remove from oven to a wire rack and cool 15 minutes before removing from pan.

A little care is needed in dealing with this baked cake, after all it is essentially flourless, and the gluten present is converted. This cake is very good the day it is made, but seems to improve and taste even better in the following days. Moisture soaks into the dried bread crumbs, and the shredded vegetable also seems to tenderize. It really is just a cake you need to try to be able to understand, to taste this something made from nothing is almost like eating stone soup.

However you arrive at them, breadcrumbs are a worthwhile, homemade food as well. I used to have them in more ample supply before I started turning out better loaves of bread, but now I specifically dry out the heels so I can grind them into powder. Their keeping power is almost surreal; I store them in glass jars my dark spice pantry and they last very well for several months.

After this last cake, I found my supply to be running quite low on breadcrumbs, so I sliced the last 1/3 of my current loaf of bread and popped it into my already-running dehydrator to dry. I had never done that before, and the texture of the dried bread surprised me! It seems worth experimenting to make dehydrated croutons, or crostini...

If you happen to be looking for a new cake to experiment with, look no further than this one. It is a miracle of cake, and a delicious alternative for vegetables. It's just sweet enough to not need frosting, but perfectly at home if you desire to make some (I'd have gone with a ginger cream cheese frosting if pressed.) It's also a good candidate for the "everyday cake" category, as well as refined enough for dinner party status. It's sure to win you some kitchen points for creativity and frugality as well!


This post has been Yeastspotted, appropriately, since Yeastspotting is Susan's weekly roundup of yeast-related posts from submissions. Check it out for immediate inspiration!

(Raw) Vegan Fig Bars.

There is a gentle hum in my house. For a whole week now. I hear it if the radio happens to be off, and when if I'm drifting off to sleep. It's the relaxing white noise belonging to my dehydrator, that in my mid-century home I can hear perfectly well even though I've given it a proper set-up and privacy in the basement.

On the heels of recent wheat sprouting, I rented a new raw food cookbook from the library: Living Raw Food by Sarma Melngailis. I read the whole thing nearly immediately, and even though I am not raw or vegan (or both simultaneously), I took particular delight in the array of foods presented, and the quality of the desserts and snacks and their lack of refined sugars.

Raw "cooking" is just plain fascinating to me. Not only does it require a few technical, specialty appliances that I actually now have, it is thought provoked, true slow food that begs days of waiting, monitoring, peeking and tasting. It is all about the end products that taste better than you hoped for, and are worth each moment of anticipation - and it's pure excitement in the knowing that what came from the long wait is probably at least a little healthier for you in the long run.

Part of my obsessing with grain-spouting lately is the Kiddo. I know I'm a food person and concentrate on such things, but I worry about his diet. He likes fruit, but not many vegetables, he prefers all starchy carbohydrates and snacky-type foods to proper meals if given the choice, and sometimes stubbornly just refuses to eat dinner if it contains something he doesn't like. I guess I figure that I have time in this bleak part of the year to do such things as sprout wheat, dehydrate it, and then grind it fresh before using it. It tastes better, and the Kiddo's digestion is probably helped out a little bit too.

When I came to the fig bars in Sarma's book, I immediately set out to sprout some oats - not realizing that most oats are not sproutable since the outer hulls are usually removed. I was attempting it on co-op bulk bin oats groats, so I gave them three days of monitoring and rinsing before I gave in and just dehydrated them. (Sarma instructs to just soak them for 6 hours or longer at room temp before dehydrating them and grinding them into flour.) That turned these little Fig Newton-type bars into a 5 or 6 day process from start to finish.

These beauty bars are sweetened only with date and fig pastes easily made by soaking dried fruit in water to fatten it up, and then sending it on a trip through the food pro with enough soaking water to approximate jam consistency. I also learned something about figs, that they are essentially inverted flowers and they have the highest mineral content of all common fruits. According to Sarma, they are high in potassium, calcium and iron, as well as having a good amount of vitamin C and fiber. More good reasons to hope my Kiddo liked them!

Now, when it came time to assemble these, I won't lie that my kitchen did not erupt into a mess of godzillic proportion, but that definitely would not stop me from making these again. I did half the recipe too since I was unsure of what I was doing and if it would be appreciated - but next time I'll make the full amount. These are dried out after all, and when storing them air-tight, I think they'll have a fairly long shelf life.

Sarma also calls for an ingredient I've never used before, maple syrup powder. I think it would be possible to dehydrate maple syrup and arrive at a usable result, but frankly I didn't have time for all of that. (Maple syrup is arguably not raw either if you are keeping track.) I substituted it with a little actual maple syrup, and everything turned out just fine. This was the first dehydrated adventure of such proportion for me, and I just went ahead and substituted as if I've been raw "baking" forever. It worked for me.

Before I started these, I read through quite a few message boards concerning raw vegan desserts and discovered that most people feel that these types of desserts are on the sweet side. I took that into consideration when reducing the amounts of dried fruit that I used for the filling. The amounts listed are for 32 bars, double everything for 64 bars. Have all of the ingredients ready before beginning. Soaking the dried fruits and turning them into pastes can be done a day or two in advance, and the oats soaked, dehydrated and turned to flour at your convenience. Trust me, all the advance work is worth it.

Raw Vegan Fig Bars (adapted from Sarma Melngailis)

• 4 c. oat flour (see note below)
• 1/2 t. RealSalt (fine salt)
• 1/4 c. coconut oil, warmed to soften
• 1/2 c. maple syrup
• 1 T. vanilla
• 3/4 c. date paste (see note below), divided
• 2 c. fig paste (see note below) (use the recommended 3 c. of fig paste for figgier bars)
  

To make the dough, mix oat flour and salt in a large bowl. Mix the coconut oil, maple syrup, vanilla, and 1/2 c. of the date paste together, and add to the flour/salt mixture. Mix thoroughly, it will feel like a soft dough, like a pie dough. If it is too dry, add water to correct.

To make filling, in a separate bowl, mix remaining date paste with fig paste. (Sarma calls to add 1/4 c. of agave to the filling, but I found the consistency to be ok with just a little water, and I didn't want to add any additional sweetener since I feel dates and figs are both pretty sweet. You can add some honey or agave if you like - and include a pinch of salt to taste.) It should have a jam-like consistency, not liquidy at all.

Cut two pieces of parchment paper that are about the size of your dehydrator screens. Divide the dough into 2 pieces, and press/roll each into an even layer. Make each sheet as close to the same size as possible. With a knife, cut one of the dough layers into 4 uniform rectangles. (This will be the top layer, cutting makes it easier to pick up without breaking.) Sarma says to freeze for 10 minutes to make it easier to handle, but I had no trouble using it right away.

Spread the fig mixture evenly over the dough layer that is not cut. Carefully place the 4 rectangles you cut from the top piece of dough over the top. Place the whole thing, on the parchment paper, on a dehydrator screen and dehydrate at 115 or less for 6 hours.

Remove from dehydrator, carefully flip the whole thing onto another piece of parchment-lined screen and peel off the bottom layer of parchment. Put it back into the dehydrator and keep dehydrating for another 6 hours.

Remove from the dehydrator, (move the parchment off of the dehydrator screen), and cut the dough into bars. Cut each quarter into 8 bars, to equal the 32 bars. Carefully transfer the bars individually to the dehydrator screens, and dehydrate for 10-12 hours longer until done.

NOTES:

To make oat flour, soak oat groats in water for at least 6 hours, drain and rinse well, dehydrate and grind in a VitaMix or grain mill.

To make date and fig pastes, soak the dried fruits for at least 2 hours in water at room temperature. (Separately, of course.) In the case of the figs, first cut off the hard stems. Drain and reserve the soaking water. Transfer to a food processor and mix, adding back the soaking liquid 1 T. at a time until it is the consistency of thick jam or butter.

This was the type of project that had more than one opportunity for me to wake up in the night and attend to it. I didn't choose to do this. I just let the bars sit until I woke up naturally to continue attending to them. You can of course, plan ahead to adjust for timing - but I don't think it's crucial. The fig bars are really done when you are happy with the texture, since all of the ingredients are able to be eaten in their raw states. You can't mess them up!

We loved these bars. My picky kid loved these bars! He was lobbying eating his whole dinner to have one for dessert afterwards, so I think they more than fit the criteria I was hoping for. They taste better than Fig Newtons, and better than the butter laden homemade versions of fig bars I've made in the past. I was so excited, I bought a couple pounds of buckwheat, sprouted and dehydrated it, to get started immediately on my next raw vegan dessert.

As I write on this cold, sunny, Saturday afternoon, the gentle hum of the dehydrator keeps me company as a wholesome buckwheat Rice Krispie variation makes its way to done. I had never had a buckwheat berry before, let alone a sprouted and dehydrated one. It is better than a Krispie for sure, and so is the marshmallow-reminiscent binder of young Thai coconuts, coconut oil and other things that I tweaked so much I'm glad I wrote them down. I could have just eaten it by the bowlful, but I'm glad I formed them into bars and have the patience to wait until another day. I'll have the fig bars as company until they are ready.

Apologies to Sarma for substituting up her awesome recipes. Great Big Thanks to the Milwaukee Public Library for their continual purchase of stellar cookbooks. This is a book that I'll have to purchase, if only for the desserts alone. Not that I won't be trying many other things in the savory veins. I'll stop myself from immediately running out to look for oyster mushrooms, but probably not for long. Then a long-planned dinner may be arriving on my table, at home in the din of dehydrating grains, percolating sourdough starter, and all the other things that somehow easily become obsessions to me.

Breakfast is the Most Important Meal of the Day

I am, and always have been, a breakfast eater. Most of the time, I'm actually hungry come morning, but even if I'm not I eat a little something. This isn't something I've adopted solely because I was interested in food, but more because my body actually needs to eat pretty quickly upon awakening, otherwise I get indescribably grumpy. No matter my circumstances, I've eaten breakfast; I used to crawl out of bed at 3:30 AM, drag myself across the room (to my strategically placed alarm clock), and then stumble in the dark to the kitchen and heat a pot of water to a boil. My rolled oats would be cooked with residual heat by the time I was showered, dressed, and fully awake.

The 3:30 AM has since been replaced with 6:30, but breakfast is still first in my mind when my feet hit the floor. I don't claim to have cornered the market on parenting, but one thing I insist upon for my only child is a good breakfast. He may be one of the pickiest children (in my eyes) on Earth, but I can get him to eat breakfast - and we eat it together every morning. After repeatedly reading about the "horrors of breakfast cereals", the grain-heavy diets that will be the doom of us all, and lots of other worthy but somewhat daunting topics relating to a nourished diet, I have long ago ditched the cereal boxes and cook real breakfast foods to start our day.

We eat eggs, toast and fruit, sourdough pancakes (which my Kiddo likes to mix himself) and "bear mush" which is essentially brown rice mixed up in the VitaMix, then cooked in my oatmeal pot. Just recently, he discovered he loves French toast, and now asks if I've got the "right kind" of leftover bread to make it with... But one of our favorite breakfasts is made up of just waffles and I've been making variations of the same recipe for more than 2 years. It's never failed once yet!

I guess it's my goal: if my picky kid likes something I keep trying to make it the best I can, and in the healthiest way possible. With renewed zeal for sprouting grains recently, I started grinding up different flours to use in our favorite waffle recipe, unsure if he would go for them. This is the child, after all, that told me on Christmas Morning that my sourdough waffles I'd specially started the day before weren't very good. (He was sweet enough to say that the other waffles I make are better, but I still felt pretty bad...) Sprouted flour waffles have won his heart however, and it seems whatever variation I've tried have been met with equal enthusiasm.

I have made these with a combination of sprouted flours, with a variety of conventional flours, (they even work with 100% whole wheat) and most recently with nixtamalized corn masa (which is supposedly easier to digest, but I just love the flavor). The base recipe is one of my favorite recipes ever, from Burp! Where Food Happens.

Spouted Waffles (adapted from Burp!)
whole batch: yield about 12 4 inch square waffles in my waffler

• 1 1/4 c. sprouted flour (oat, wheat, spelt)
• 3/4 c. corn masa flour (or corn meal)
• 2 t. baking powder
• 1 t. baking soda
• 1 T. sweetener (honey, maple syrup, sugar)
• 1/2 t. salt
• 2 eggs
  
• 2 cups of thin yogurt or buttermilk
• 2 T. (more or less, I never measure) melted butter, coconut oil or olive oil

Sift or stir dry ingredients together in a bowl. Mix wet ingredients together in a large measuring cup until they are well combined. Pour over dry ingredients, mixing just enough to make sure everything is incorporated.

Bake, as you do waffles, in a waffle iron until done.

Half-Batch ingredient list:
makes about 6 4 inch square waffles on my waffler

• 1/2 c. + 2 T. sprouted flour
• 3/8 c. (6 T.) corn masa or cornmeal
• 1 t. baking powder
  
• 1/2 t. baking soda
• 1 1/2 t. sweetener
• 1/4 t. salt
• 1 egg
• 1 c. thin yogurt or buttermilk
• 1 T. or so oil of choice or butter
  

These waffles are maybe not as sturdy as conventional flour waffles, but are surprisingly easy to get from waffler to plate without much trouble. They're even easier to get from plate to mouth. Some flours hold up better than others I've found, but the recipe has good bones so I doubt there is much you could do to ruin it!

Considering cooking breakfast generates dishes, it bears noting that even though I make breakfast every day, I seem have everything cleaned up afterwards in no time too. We need to leave our house for school by 8:05, and we rarely eat before 7. Some mornings, I wonder how it is that I've made something nutritious in short order, eaten it and have done all the dishes inside of a half hour. I can't deny that I'm efficient, but I also acknowledge that sometimes we have leftovers that make homemade breakfast a breeze.

Both waffles and pancakes keep well for a day or two in the fridge, and I even prefer them after a run through the toaster oven. Oatmeals and "bear mushes" take only one pot, and the egg pan just gets wiped clean thanks to the miracle that is cast iron. Toast needs only slicing (and a quick brushing off of the counter if the loaf is crusty sourdough), and fruit only to be washed and sliced. All of these are as therapeutic as an extra ten minutes of sleep, I think.

Have I made my case yet for banishing the box of quick and easy cereal? Breakfast really is one of my favorite meals of the day, and I'm confident that my picky eater loves it too. I hope it sets him up for a lifelong love of beginning the day with food. Breaking the overnight fast with nutritious things will hopefully also remind him throughout each day of eating to take care with food choices.

an older pic of a "conventional flour" waffle.

Sprouted Wheat Flour Quick Bread.

My month of without refined sugar has ended. However, with a flip of the calender I still don't feel liberated enough to dive headfirst back into my previous affair with sugar. I feel better without him, and the trial separation only cements what I knew in my head but not in my heart to be true: that refined sugar is a devious addiction, one that is full of false happiness and is incredibly hard to break.

So then, what is a habitual baker to do? Last week, my Parents visited and I made a chocolate sourdough cake in honor of their arrival. I also made a quick bread for the first time in a month. I could sing the praises of quick breads all day, but usually they are riddled with sugar and frequently they contain more than one type. Sugar in quick bread appears solid but is treated as liquid, and it adds moisture even if you are off thinking about his devilish ways.

As with all things that I've done so many times that they have become reliable, I have a hard time just swapping a major part of a recipe out entirely. I'm afraid of the result becoming inedible, wasting perfectly great ingredients simply because I'm curious. I have reduced sugar by small percentages, but never just removed it entirely and replaced it. I actually said "no guts, no glory" as I poured into a favorite quick bread recipe what I figured would be an appropriate amount of maple syrup. And with the gamble, came a wonderful result - a bread that was moist, not too sweet and surprisingly devoid of any real maple flavor.

unsure of the maple flavor, I omitted the citrus zest - but I wouldn't have needed to.

The gently domed loaf, the frozen cranberries that turned tender and sweet, this bread was guilt free, and perfect with our morning coffee. Had I made this bread without the company of my folks, it would have lingered for a week. My picky boys have nothing to do with cranberries. But the demise of the loaf just after my Parents' departure had me thinking about even more healthful quick breads. Could I use sprouted wheat flour and come up with something even more virtuous?

Over the weekend, I sprouted and dehydrated about a pound and half of soft wheat berries. Monday morning, I turned some into flour and made my favorite waffles. The kiddo declared them the best I've ever made, and I had to agree. There is something naturally sweet about sprouted flour, and something ridiculously fragile. Airy cross-sections of waffle practically melted under a gaze. This could be because the gluten in sprouted flour is drastically changed and reduced by the act of sprouting. (I'm assuming this based on trial and error, and this fascinating graph. If you know something about the science of sprouted grains and how composition changes, please leave me a comment!)

Last night, I couldn't shake the feeling that I had to know if I could bake the same loaf of quick bread using my previous maple syrup substitution AND augmenting it with sprouted soft wheat flour. My result was not too far from perfect. The middle did not raise much and fell as it cooled, the bread took longer to bake, and then it still felt "wet" in the middle even after cooling completely. But the flavor was so good, and the texture compelling, that I'm not giving up on this recipe. It had the texture of steamed British pudding, the cranberries even more soft and downright pudding-like themselves, but yet the edges were fully dried out and just a whisper sends it breaking into crumbly bits.

It's good with the morning coffee. And it was good before bedtime as well. I may have a hard time making it last a week.

If you don't use the sprouted wheat flour, the loaf will rise higher and probably not need as long to bake. I will update this post at the bottom as I continue to work through this recipe.

Sprouted Wheat Cranberry Bread (adapted from Cook's Illustrated)

• 2/3 c. thin yogurt (or buttermilk)
• 6 T. butter, melted and cooled slightly
• 3/4 c. maple syrup
• zest of one orange (or lemon)
  
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 2 c. sprouted soft wheat flour
• 1 t. baking powder
• 1/2 t. baking soda
• 1 t. kosher salt
• 6 oz. cranberries (about 1 1 /2 c.), coarsely chopped (I use a food processor)
• 1/2 c. toasted pecans or walnuts

Preheat oven to 375. Dip a pastry brush in the melted butter, and coat the inside of a standard size loaf pan.

Stir together yogurt (or buttermilk), maple syrup, orange zest, melted butter, and egg.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt. Add the wet ingredients, and stir gently just to combine using a rubber spatula. Fold in the cranberries and nuts, and spread into prepared pan - being sure to spread it well into the corners.

Bake at 375 for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 350 and continue baking for 45-55 minutes until the top is deep golden brown and a tester comes out mostly clean. (I'll try baking this next time at a lower temperature throughout the whole baking time.) If the loaf appears to be darkening too fast during baking, tent it with foil.

Remove from oven, let stand in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes before removing from pan to cool completely before slicing.

It could be that the cranberries gave off a little too much moisture, preventing the center from drying enough, but strangely this bread is not heavy or leaden. A dried fruit addition could cure that perhaps. What I do know is that the Internet seems strangely devoid of recipes for sprouted wheat quick breads, and I may just make it my mission to remedy that. If you have any tips or ideas, send them my way. Meanwhile, I'll be sprouting more wheat berries.