The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book_ A Guide to Whole-Grain Breadmaking - Laurel Robertson [110]
NON-DIASTATIC MALT
Ordinary (non-diastatic) malt syrup, the kind we call for in some of our recipes, is used only as a flavoring and sweetener, not for any enzyme activity. Should you inadvertently overheat your sprouts so that their enzymes are destroyed—this happens at about 140°F—they can still flavor bread or hot cereal in a malty way that is quite delicious.
Unyeasted Sprout Bread
This “simplest of breads” contains only sprouted wheat: nothing else. The commercial versions sold under the brand names Essene and Wayfarer’s Bread (and perhaps others) have been very popular, but making them at home is pretty challenging: but here it is, a recipe that does work. If your first try is off in some way, either bland-tasting or else too wet, next time pay more attention to the timing of the sprouts, because that is the crux of it. The finished bread should be moist, flaky, dark, a little sweet—dense without being heavy. Its devotees consider it the purest of breads, and since it has no flour, no yeast, no salt, sweetener, fat, or dairy products, who can argue?
Use about a pound of wheat per loaf. Start with 2 to 3 pounds, about 6 cups of wheat: that will make three good-sized loaves. Choose hard spring or winter wheat. Soak it in warm-room-temperature water for 18 hours, then keep it covered in a dark place, rinsing it three times a day until the little sprout is one-third the length of the grain. This will take about 36 to 48 hours, maximum. If you fear that the sprouts may get away from you before you can grind them up, slow them down by putting them in the refrigerator toward the end of the time.
If the sprouts are too young, the bread will not be sweet; if too old, the bread will be gooey and will never bake out.
Remove the excess moisture from the sprouts by patting them with a terry towel. Grind them with a Corona-type mill or a meat grinder, or about 2 cups at a time in your food processor, using the regular steel blade. Make them as smooth as possible. What results from the grinding is sticky, but knead it very well, nonetheless. For this, mechanical help is welcome, and if you ground the sprouts in your food processor, just keep processing each 2 cups for about 3 minutes in all, stopping just before the dough ball falls apart. How long this takes will depend on the kind of wheat you use: watch carefully.
By hand or with a dough hook knead until the gluten is developed, somewhat longer than you would do with a normal dough. If you are kneading by hand, keep the dough in a bowl and use a hefty wooden spoon or dough knob unless you want to abandon yourself to the ancient mud-pie method of squeezing it between your fingers until the gluten gets going and the going gets easier.
Whatever method you have used to get to this point, cover the dough and let it rest for about an hour or so, then shape it into smallish oblong loaves and place on a well-greased baking sheet. Bake slowly, not over 325°F for 2 ½ hours or until nicely browned. (The bread does well in a solar oven, if you have one.)
Cool the loaves and wrap them in a towel. Put them in plastic or brown paper bags, and set aside in a cool place or in the refrigerator for a day or two. This softens the leathery crust and gives the insides time to attain their moist flaky perfection.
VARIATION (and a big improvement): Grind ½ cup of dates along with each pound of sprouted wheat. Other dried fruits can work well, too, but we like dates best by far. Raisins make a very sticky, very black loaf; it is too sweet unless you reduce the measure by half.
Yeasted Sprout Bread
This is a distinctive bread with lots of chew, lots of character, lots of appeal. We suspect that we should credit some of the goodness of our own version to the inefficiency of the third-hand (reformed) meat grinder that we use to grind the sprouts. It simply