This post from My New Roots entitled The Life-Changing Loaf of Bread has certainly changed our bread-eating lives. With no gluten, no dairy, a ton of flavor and nourishment, and a satisfying bread-like mouth feel, this loaf will appear on our table long into the future. A couple of slices of this bread with honey and a hard cheese makes the perfect mid-morning snack, and the secret ingredient, Psyllium Seed Husk, does wonders for the digestive tract. As Sarah from MNR says, “Psyllium seed husks are one of nature’s most absorbent fibers, able to suck up over ten times their weight in water. For this reason, you’ll often find psyllium in over-the-counter laxatives, stool-bulking agents and colon cleansing kits; basically anything having to do with poo.”
Tracking down Psyllium Seed Husks can be tricky, but most good health stores should carry it and I am sure you can source some online. It is relatively cheap still and this recipe only uses 4 tbsp per loaf. Besides helping you in your daily visits with God, Psyllium Seeds also act as the binding agent for this bread thanks to their incredible ability to absorb liquid – and therefor negate the need for any flour at all.
So, what else is in this bread? Well, 2 cups total of whatever seeds or nuts you have in stock (I have played around with several combinations and love mixing caraway, fennel, and toasted sunflower seeds with toasted cashew and macademia nuts). Adding 1 1/2 cups of rolled oats also helps bind the bread, and then the liquid can be roughly 1 3/4 cups of a mixture of mostly water, with a little coconut oil and maple syrup. Play around with the fats and the sweeteners and see what combination you enjoy best – ghee for the fats and pure honey for the sweetener gave it a bit more of a deeper, more decadent taste. Oh, and some salt of course. For a more exact recipe, again, see Sarah’s wonderful blog.
Putting the bread together couldn’t be simpler: grease a regular sized (8 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ x 2 1/2″) bread loaf pan and then add all dry ingredients (seeds, nuts, Psyllium Seed Husk, rolled oats, salt), mixing well. Then add wet ingredients (water, fats, sweeteners) and mix thoroughly. Pat the batter down with the back of a spoon until it feels firm and tightly-packed. Let sit at room temperature for 2 – 12 hours to help the bread bind. Bake in loaf pan for 20 minutes at 350 F. Turn bread upside down directly onto oven rack and bake for another 30-40 minutes. Let cool completely before slicing to allow bread to finish cooking and solidify structure. Keep for up to a week or slice and freeze for quick toast bites!
Miller, Baker, Mead-Maker 