Pistachio Peach Sprouted Einkorn Artisan Bread

  The concept of sprouted wheat bread isn't new to me, in fact I used it for years to make my Sprouted Wheat Bread in a Food Processor that first saw its way onto the blog in 2009. I have many Sprouted Wheat Recipes but those have been tricky because of the nature of sprouted wheat and the process can be time consuming.  In the early days, I had a lot more time to sprout the grain and make my own products directly, including the option of re-dehydrating the sprouted grains and making them into flour.  If you have the time and means to do it, that is a valuable skill and the most nutritious. When grains are sprouted they are converted into a raw, living food with more vital nutrients which are more readily absorbed by the body. Sprouted flours are digested by the body as a vegetable not as a starch.

When grains are sprouted, enzymes are created that aid digestion. Complex sugars are also broken down and as a result, painful intestinal gases and potent carcinogens and enzyme inhibitors are neutralized. This is especially beneficial for those people with intolerance to wheat as they often discover that they can digest sprouted grains without any problem. Grains are normally digested as starches using pancreatic enzymes but when grains are sprouted the starch molecules are changed into vegetable sugars which the body then digests as a vegetable.  

The trick is getting the dehydration done at just the right enzyme stage of the sprouting as to produce good bread instead of bricks. It is also an issue to use a dehydration method that doesn't get too hot and kill all the nutritional benefits of sprouting (anything over 118 degrees). Those enzymes are critical to the raising process of the bread.   

I personally have changed to just purchasing the Pre-sprouted and dehydrated organic sprouted wheat and milling it at home in a stone mill or if you don't have a mill, purchasing it already ground. The other baking benefit of sprouted flour is that it has the depth of flavor associated with a long slow fermentation in a bread dough that is usually achieved with eight-12 hours of slow raising, but it can be done in a short period of time (usually an hour or less). 

Because Einkorn is an ancient form of wheat, it is already a better option for those who can't tolerate modern wheat, but sprouting the grain takes it one step further!   Organicgrains.com is the only company I know of that actually mills the grains to order to provide the freshest flours possible and retaining the nutrition of the flour. I'm addicted to their  Sprouted Einkorn Wheat Flour .  It has all the benefits of sprouted grain without having to do all the back-work.  I'm okay with that right now.  I've enjoyed working with OrganicGrains.com and their products so much, that I asked if they would sponsor my TV show. They graciously agreed and have been very kind to us. So yes, I do benefit greatly from my association with their brand, but I loved them long before they started backing me. 

Sprouted Einkorn Flour from OrganicGrains.com 

Why Use Sprouted Wheat Flour?

According to research done by the University of Minnesota, sprouting increases the total nutrient density.

• Vitamin B1 (thiamin) increase of 28%
• Vitamin B2 (riboflavin) increase of 315%
• Vitamin B3 (niacin) increase of 66%
• Vitamin B5 (pantothenic) increase of 65%
• Biotin increase of 111%
• Folic Acid increase of 278%
• Vitamin C increase of 300%

These studies also demonstrated a significant increase in various enzymes including amylase, lipase and Protease. Sprouting grains also helps with the absorption of calcium, magnesium, iron, copper and zinc as reported by the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation.*Resource: www.organicwheatproducts.com 

 Gourmet Nuts and Dried Fruit sent me this huge box of my favorite little nuggets of love and asked me to try them out in my baking. We discussed earlier this week all The Health Benefits of Pistachios so I wanted to use them in conjunction with this amazing sprouted wheat flour to really get all that nutrition in one place. 

This is "Staff of Life" kind of bread. It will definitely give you a huge boost of energy as well as a full gamut of benefits.  If you don't want to use dried peaches, this recipe will work with any dried fruit. Figs would be amazing! 

Pistachio Peach Sprouted Einkorn Artisan Bread
Yield: 1 loaf

3 cups Sprouted Einkorn Wheat Flour
1 tsp Salt 
1 1/2 cups Water, lukewarm
1 cup Raw Pistachios, chopped 
1/2 cup Dried Peaches or any Dried Fruit, chopped
1/2 cup Coconut Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Yeast, active dry

 Directions: Combine all ingredients in a large 1 gallon bowl, and mix by hand until combined, about 2 minutes.

Cover tightly with plastic wrap or a lid and allow to sit at room temperature 1 hour.  Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured countertop.  Cut it in half and form each part gently into a ball. Roll dough into a rectangle and fold into thirds. Roll, pinch, and form into a loaf. Place in greased 4 quart dutch oven loaf and raise one hour. Preheat oven to 425°. When oven is hot and only then, place loaves in the oven. Covered with lid. After 15 minutes, reduce heat to 325 ° and remove lid, Continue baking for 30-35 minutes, until internal temperature is over 175°.

There you go! Make some nutritious and extremely delicious bread. Your body will thank you!


Always My Very Best,
Your Friend Chef Tess

My Mom's 5 Day Bread Dough...Updated Bosch Tutorial!

Homemade matters to us.  For my entire life, this recipe has been the standard of excellence in bread making. This is a bread dough recipe that my mother, Geneve, developed for her college Food Science final. I grew up with this bread and the smell of wheat grinding fresh in our family home.  I remember mom always testing the fresh milled flour to be sure the wheat had not gone rancid in storage.  Today...we milled wheat that I had put away when my first born son was born. Yup. 14 years ago.  I turned into my mom today. I got really giddy to find it was still perfect wheat, ready for bread.

  There was also only one bread mixer that she would ever openly praise.  It was our family Bosch mixer from the Bosch Kitchen Store.  It really was the only machine strong enough to handle this dough, because she made 5-6 loaves at a time. Repeat that several times a week. The machine lasted without a hick-up or need for a tune-up for most of my life. The last time I visited my mother, she was still using the same machine. She got the machine when I was about 2 years old...and I turn...(gulp) forty this year.  Yup. Bosch mixer are that good.

Gathering around Mom’s mixer and watching the dough form into supple perfection was the highlight of my week and the very testing-ground for what became a baking passion for me. We had to watch as it "spun gold out of wheat" and I was able to see first-hand what proper protein development should look like in the bread making process. Baking bread with mom made me what I am today. Some of life’s richest lessons were taught around that bread-board. 

 She'd always dissect the fresh loaves and make sure they were up to her standard.  I still do the same when I make mine. 

• Is the crust thin, crisp, and uniformly colored? 
• Is the crust tight to the loaf or did it separate?
• Is the loaf rounded, uniform in width size, and well domed? 
• Is the taste mild and sweet with the flavor of the wheat?
• Are there any strong flavors?
•  Is it overly yeasty, sour or salty?   
• Is the texture silky and tender?
•  Is the crumb fine? 
• Are there any flour lumps or knots in the dough?
• Are the air holes uniform?
• Can you cut reasonable slices without the bread falling apart?

Life has taken me far from my mother’s home. If I think about it too much, I get misty-eyed.  Now as a pastry chef and mother myself, her recipe for this remarkable bread remains a classic.  I was reminded of this once again this week as we gathered around our mixer. Mine is the newest model, thanks to my friends at Bosch. The recipe...is still mom's. 

It is called 5-day bread, but the dough can be made up to 7 days ahead of time. I still use it every single week! The dough is stored in a large bucket or covered bowl in the fridge.  Sometimes I divide it between 4 gallon sized zipper bags.  I love this dough made into rolls, pretzels, pizzas and yes, decorative ornate braided bread loaves.  You’ll find this to be excellent dough to keep on hand for all your bread making needs. Don’t be dismayed by the number of ingredients in this bread, each one works with the other to make it perfect.

Chef Tess' Mom's 5-Day Bread
2 T active-dry yeast OR 1T SAF Instant premium yeast
4 c milk, scalded and cooled OR water (no hotter than 115 degrees)
3/4 c honey
1T salt
4 large eggs
3/4 c oil (olive or melted coconut oil)
1 1/2 c mashed potatoes, cooled to body temperature
1T baking powder
14-15 cups fresh milled whole wheat bread flour ( tutorial on making-whole-grain-flour-at-home )

Directions: Dissolve yeast in milk (or water) in a Bosch Universal Mixer.  Yeast does matter. I use this one because I know it works.

Stir in honey. Allow yeast to get foamy. Add egg, oil, mashed potato, baking powder, salt and 14 cups of fresh milled flour. Turn to speed 1 and combine about 30 seconds.

 Increase speed to 3 and mix 4 ½ minutes until dough is soft and well developed but not dry.

 It will look almost like spun golden yarn. That's what good protein development should look like in your bowl. 

Allow dough to rest 10 minutes in the bowl (this gives the wheat time to absorb moisture). Don't skip this 10 minute resting step. You'll end up using way more flour than you need to in your bread and your bread will be dry.  After 10 minutes, you should be able to pull a piece out and have it string 6-7 inches above the bowl without the dough breaking. 

Add enough of the flour remaining to make soft dough that is easy to handle but not dry. More often than not, I don't have to add any more flour at all. Turn dough onto a  very lightly floured surface.  Form into a ball. It should hold it's shape without melting into a blob on your counter-top. 

 Place dough  in an ungreased 2-gallon bowl or food-grade bucket, covered tightly. If you don't have a large enough bowl...use two smaller bowls. Or...just half the recipe if you are worried about the dough growing all over your fridge outside of the container.

Put in the fridge, tightly covered.
 Punch down after 2 hours (this may be faster if you use warm ingredients or flour). If the dough is over 85 degrees when you put it in the fridge, be sure to punch down sooner. 
Form into a ball again. Cover tightly and chill at least 8 hours.  This chilling step is what will give you the best taste in your bread.  Long, slow, low fermentations of dough  are unparalleled for flavor development and gluten elasticity. This fermentation process cannot be produced by adding artificial flavors or mixing longer mechanically.  Some people try to mimic this process by adding extra chemical dough conditioners or added gluten powders.  They are not necessary if you do this step correctly.  They happen naturally by slowly raising in your fridge. This is the single most important step in making this bread remarkable and clean from added chemicals. 

Be sure to punch down daily if keeping it more than a day or two (this not only expels gas, but also ensures even temperature in the dough). This will yield 4 standard sized loaves of bread. Yes. You can also use it for anything remarkable at this point. I have such a hard time not making it into at least a dozen cinnamon rolls...or apple pie rolls...

To bake a standard sized loaf: Divide dough in 4 equal portions, about 2 lbs of dough for standard loaves. Form each loaf using the loaf molding technique ( Loaf Molding Tutorial).  Lightly coat the top of the loaf with melted butter and then lightly tent the loaves with plastic or plastic bags OR place in a moist place to rise. Allow to rise (1 -1 ½ hrs) until dough is about 1-2 inches above the edge of the pan. Lightly slit the top with a very sharp knife. 

Bake in preheated 425° oven for 20 minutes then drop the temperature to 350 for the final 15-20 minutes of cooking.

Remove from pans and allow cooling completely before cutting.
I cut this loaf right from the oven. 

Awww. See how it looks fuzzy instead of a clean texture?

Wait 30 minutes...and it slices a lot cleaner and nicer. 

So now I have my dough, ready for the week. It is just part of what I do to make things run smoothly here and save money.  Homemade matters to us. I know what is going into our sandwiches and lunch boxes.  We're using fresh milled grain that keeps the nutrition right in my kitchen instead of a factory somewhere. Plus, saving money and eating whole food is just how we roll.  

Yes. Mom was right. The best things in life cannot come from a store. They come from the heart. As I watched my kiddos rip into this gorgeous bread (while praising my name) I thought to myself, "This is it. This is why I do what I do."   Make a memory. Share some love.  Get the goodness into them!  And by all means, move onward and upward!

Always My Very Best,
Your Friend Chef Tess

Making whole-grain flour at home in 3 Easy steps! Turning Wheat into Bread!

 After 13 years of using an older hand-me-down grain mill, I finally have saved enough to get the electric grain mill I've had my eyes on for 2 years. Yup. We do practice delayed gratification at my house. I realize I could have bought it sooner...but I really wanted to be sure it was in the family budget after other debts were paid off. So. Enter the new grain mill. Eeeek! I'm so excited!  This is the NutriMill. I'm totally in love. Today we used 50lbs of whole KAMUT® ancient Egyptian wheat. It is organic, non-GMO and 70% of the people who have issues with modern wheat can tolerate this form of grain. With this mill, we made 50lbs of flour in about 20 minutes. That might be a record for making flour around here. In fact, my kids usually moan when I say, "It is flour making day!" However, this new mill was so easy to use that they ended up being asked repeatedly to stop making flour! I LOVE that! Love it!

 Here are the basic steps to making flour:

Step One: Assemble the grain mill.

 The first thing I noticed about this new NutriMill.  was how easy it was to assemble. I was worried that my giant-little brain wouldn't be able to get it to work.

 The instructions were pretty clear.

 Step 2: Follow what the NutriMill owner's manual says about the first time you use their mill. This means you need to mill 2 cups of wheat and then discard it. This will eliminate any contaminants the mill may obtain in the manufacturing process. Make sure the grain you use is clean! 

Mill that first 2 cups of wheat according to the mill instructions. This one says to unplug the mill, add the grain to the top. Then plug in the mill and turn it on. There is a knob on the front that is easy to adjust for how fine or large the grains are that are going into the stones to be ground.

 Throw away that first two cups of wheat (about 4 cups of flour). By the way, this step only needs to be done the very first time you ever ever use the mill. From here on out, I'm good to mill and use all the grain I want without throwing any away.

 Step 3: Let the kids take over and make the bread. You think I'm kidding right? Not really but okay. I was there in the kitchen when they started milling the grain. They know how to use our hand-crank grain mill as well, but today we did electric. I wanted there to be full ownership in this bread. I am the Little Red Hen Mother. If they want bread, they get to help make it. Plus, this also gives me the extreme emotional and spiritual satisfaction of knowing that in any given situation, my boys will know how to make food from grain. Bread, porridge, crackers or anything that can be made from flour, they can make. I'm sick-in-the-head that way, but I get a weird sense of peace in knowing that they will leave my home someday with a full knowledge of how to work, cook, and contribute to society as a whole. So...starting with wheat and basic food is a good place. They could end up in a country someday that doesn't have flour. You think I'm kidding right? No Way. I'm thinking about being prepared for anything in life...anything! Will they be soldiers or in a refugee camp in the future? I don't know. There are not any guarantees in life.  If they only had wheat or any other grain, they'd be good to go! Heck yes! Rock-star cool! Yes, they are boys. So?!? If I had girls they'd learn the same thing. Boys grow up into men who need to eat right?! What if there isn't a girl around who knows how to make flour?! See...sick mother isn't so sick right?  So let us repeat the steps again:
1. Unplug mill and add grain to the top (hopper).

 2.Turn mill on & adjust the grind to the your desired texture of flour. Random side note. My son asked, "Hey does the wheat scream when it gets down to the part where it is all ground up?!" I laughed out loud as I remembered watching my grandmother's grain mill and the last straggling grains hold on to the edge of the mill's hopper before being sucked into the black hole at the bottom to be ground into the sweet and delicious flour that would be made into bread. Yes my son. They scream. Just like kids scream when they go down a water slide. It's fun! Or it is grain-o-side. Either way...it is for the greater good. Right? Try not to encourage slipping on grain-native-ceremonial-garb and doing some weird dances and chants while the grain is being sacrificed to the grain-mill-demi-god. I'm crazy but I'm not insane. Wait. Now that I think of it...the dancing would be just strange enough to do wouldn't it? If I can fashion the turmeric and paprika into a thick paint-like paste to rub on our noses...{I digress}.

 Hold on little grain and your life may be spared! Bwhahaha! Not today looser. Evil grin (as I flick the grain with my finger into the pit of despair)!

One thing I do with my grain is add 4 cardamom seeds to each batch of flour.

 I grind them with the wheat. The mill is not designed to grind spices alone (so keep that in mind and if you do add anything to your grain, keep it as pure as possible).  The cardamom will help the flour to retard bugs and other pests. I don't keep the flour around very long but it is a wonderful habit to have. Doesn't that seed mixed in with the grain look so much like a...nevermind.

 Little Man took his turn with the grain grinding as well. He's getting so tall! I don't know how much longer I can call him my Little Man.

 Each 25 lb bag of Kamut made 5, 5lb bags of flour. Simple math right?

 In the end, we made dough for 25 loaves of bread. We retained 25 lbs of flour for the bread class I'd be teaching soon.

It is beautiful stuff.

Step #3. Let kids make the bread. Or make it yourself. Whatever.
My son Face was anxious to make the bread now that he had made the flour.
4 cups hard wheat flour

 2 cups water. 1/4 tsp instant yeast.

 1 1/2 tsp salt.

 Mix until just combined. I'm not going to lie. This is his favorite part.

 The dough is so smooshy at first.

Once all the dough is smooshy, cover over with a lid and let sit 10-14 hours (usually for us it is about 12 hours before we get back to it). Dough will be ready to make into bread. The printable tutorial is below for how to make it into bread.

If you want the printable go to:

No Knead Wheat Bread Tutorial and Printable Instructions

There you go! Turn Wheat into Bread!
Save money and empower yourself! 

Legal blah blah blah: By the way...I paid for my mill out of my own pocket so this a totally unbiased review of the mill. The opinions expressed here on the blog are totally my own. Isn't that good to know? I don't make any money if you decide to buy a mill based on this review. 

Always My Very Best,
Your Friend Chef Tess