What I Found to Sprout About - Sprouted Bread Recipe

As I settle back into a normal routine after 2 weeks of vacation and recover from a kitchen remodel gone awry, please enjoy this guest post by friend and free-lance writer Lesley. Lesley shares her journey of making the perfect loaf of sprouted bread in order to maximize iron absorption for her son.

My name is Lesley, and I have a sprouting habit. It all started with my own little human sprouts, three and one, whose bodies don’t absorb iron efficiently. Our pediatrician pinpointed low iron as a possible culprit behind our eldest’s restless movements and trouble getting to sleep. Lab reports corroborated the hunch. The stubbornly low ferritin levels prompted me to take on a mission in the kitchen: to get a healthy amount of iron into my children’s daily food intake and to make that iron as easy as possible for their bodies to absorb.

Nutritionally speaking, whole wheat owns processed white, right? My faith in this tenet of nutritious living was shaken when I learned that whole wheat blocks absorption of certain vitamins and minerals, including iron. It’s all the fault of the phytates, these unseemly compounds who hang out with fiber and go around inhibiting iron absorption.

Here’s my dilemma: I can’t cut out whole wheat from my children’s diets. You know the drill. Whole grain foods nourish the body longer because they are complex carbohydrates with a lower glycemic index. They tend not to cause blood sugar spikes and crashes. They are fiber-rich. What’s more, they are packed with phytochemicals, plant components that have been linked to lowered risk of chronic diseases. I want my kids to develop a taste for hearty whole grains over processed baked goods. What’s a mom to do?

According to this USDA resource, eating meat and ascorbic acid along with wheat can also work to counteract the inhibiting effect. Well, that’s a start. But sometimes those bully phytates are going to come around in my boys’ digestive systems, and there won’t be enough meat or ascorbic acid there to tell them off. Jenna from Food with Kid Appeal suggested soaking whole grains to reduce the phytates. This prompted me to research soaking, which ultimately led me to discover the world of sprouting. And what a fascinating world it is.

Wheat berries and other whole grains, when they enter their active growing state, alter nutritionally and become easier to digest. The Nutrition Diva explains this topic objectively and without hype. Most importantly for my purposes, sprouting hydrolyzes phytates, which is believed to enhance iron absorption. Check out the source here. Eureka!

Show Me the Sprouts

Where can you find bread made from iron-friendly sprouts? It’s in the freezer aisle of many grocery stores due to its shorter shelf life (there’s moisture in them thar loaves). However, it’ll put you back around four dollars per small loaf.

I decided to check out the home-sprouted, homemade route. I found this sprouted wheat bread recipe online, and it seemed to entail only a few more steps than a bread machine recipe. Kneading was kept to a minimum. I could do this.

But Does it Taste Good?

I did do it. I have now made several loaves of sprouted bread over the past month or two. The recipe yields a robust, grainy, yet very moist loaf that is reminiscent of German pumpernickel – you know, the one that comes in a perfect rectangle. I thoroughly enjoy it, but that’s not saying much; I like everything. Much more impressive is the fact that my children have consistently gobbled up their sprouted bread P&J sandwiches. I made their first slices of the bread extra tempting with a pat of butter, then used fruit preserves, then moved on to peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. They liked it all, and they didn’t tire of it after a couple of days. This has given me a great sense of achievement and relief.

I have used it for my smoked turkey, apple, roasted red pepper hummus sandwiches, a favorite lunch-time treat that I adapted from the Self Challenge. A slice of this bread is also the perfect vehicle for peanut butter topped with banana slices and cinnamon. It has yet to disappoint. The description in Weesner’s article is spot-on:

“It makes other bread seem like a saltine.”

This Loaf Wasn’t Built in a Day

If you want to try your hand at baking sprouted bread, be prepared for some trial and error before you finally craft that perfect loaf, the one that has beams of light radiating from it and angelic choirs bursting into song when you gaze upon it. Don’t give up – you’re not in over your head.

I’ll share with you some of the practices I have found to contribute to sprouted bread success, following this recipe:

1. My best loaves have been made with hard red winter wheat grains, though I also recommend barley because it gave the bread a faint, satisfying beer taste. My quinoa-wheat loaf came out very dense. Like a brick. It’ll be a while before I try that again.

2. I soak the grains in a bowl for about 12 hours, then put them into a colander and give them a good rinsing. Then the whole colander goes into a bigger bowl and gets covered with plastic wrap.

3. The grains get several rinsings over the next couple of days. They should sprout quickly, and they should always smell fresh.

4. I use the mini-chopper to puree the sprouts for the dough rather than the blender. This requires working in batches. The smell is fresh and invigorating, like newly mowed grass or sliced cucumber.

5. The recipe requires only a minute or two of kneading here and there. I spend those minutes in quiet contemplation, taking in the yummy aroma of the yeast and wheat.

6. Experience has taught me to respect the thermometer. For best results, the internal temperature of the loaf must reach at least 200 degrees. It will have a dark brown crust, solid structure, and satisfying hollow sound when thumped on the bottom.

7. After it has cooled, the loaf is bedecked in plastic wrap and/or foil and sent to the refrigerator to await the fulfillment of its ultimate purpose. At mealtime, I whisk it out, saw (yes, saw) off a slice with a bread knife, and warm it in the microwave for a few seconds or toast it.

Here’s to Grains Yet Unsprouted

I expect bowl of moist wheat berries sunning themselves in a bowl on the counter will be a familiar sight around my house for years to come. May your own sprouting efforts be as rewarding as I have found mine to be.

LESLEY CLINTON is a freelance writer and educator with an MA in Teaching. She is increasingly enamored with the theme of nourishment.

Do you sprout? Please share your legume, nuts and seed sprouting stories (or bread making flops and prize winning loaf stories) in the comments.