15 LichField Road556835 Singapore
So I am French ! And considering living a life without eating any bread seems impossible to me ! I am attending nutrition courses and we had recently a lecture about grains. Some diets recommend not to eat any and it seems some people are really reactive to the proteins they contain (not only the wheat gluten). This scared me a little and I turned grain free for a few days… But actually as rightly explained in my course, food is bio individual and we all react differently to what we eat. In my case, I have figured that eating less gluten definitely helps me digest better and feel better, but I can not imagine skipping bread for the rest of my life, or at least at this stage of my life 🙂 However I try to enjoy only the best, eating sourdough organic bread when I chose to eat real bread. And of course I have banned white loaves or baguettes and any industrial baked stuffed. And when I decide to go gluten and / or flour free I bake myself some loaves like this one, which are super yum and so nutritionally good ! Of course it doesn’t taste like bread (no yeast or levain, and no flour) but it’s got a crust, a dense moist inside with some chunky seeds bites so it definitely recalls some nordic bread loaves and works really well with savory or sweet toppings. Don’t mention to your kids it’s made with lentils, they won’t taste them 🙂 and play with the different grains ratio if you want to have more / less buckwheat or quinoa, or millet flavor. You can also add a little spices like cinnamon, and some nuts or raisins if you want to twist it a little. Recipe below, super basic, just remember to prepare it the day before to soak your legumes, grains and seeds. This is actually super beneficial from a nutrition standpoint as it activates them by removing their physic acid external coating. Phytic acid prevents them from germinating and has been proven to diminish nutrients assimilation ! So don’t skip this part !
Ingredients for one loaf
- 100 g coral lentils
- 140 g buckwheat or millet or quinoa (or combination of all those, which I prefer)
- 70 g Sunflower seeds
- 70 g Pumpkin seeds
- 10 g chia seeds
- 10 g Hemp seeds
- 4 tbsp Psyllium powder
- 250 ml water
- 2 tsp sea salt
- 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp baking soda
Instructions
- Soak all your seeds and grains the day before in filtered water.
- In the morning, rinse them well and drain them
- Preheat your oven to 160°C fan forced
- Mix your psyllium with 125 ml water and let it rest for a few minutes
- Transfer your seeds and grains to your high speed blender and add your psyllium and all the other ingredients.
- Mix to blend well and break some of your seeds but ensure you keep some bits and texture. Once done add additional spices / raisins / nuts if using any.
- Transfer to your prepared tin layered with baking paper and top with additional seeds
- Put in your oven for min 1h and 20 / 25 min. Check, it should be gently golden on the top and your toothpick will come clean when checking doneness.
- Let it cool down in the tin before transferring out and wait it’s totally cool to slice.
- Enjoy!
Hi there ! So if you follow me, you probably know that I work in a tiny artisanal super yummy bakery in Singapore (Microbakery&Kitchen) owned by a Singaporean friend. Being French I was born with bread, raised with baguettes and pain de campagne, and developed over the years a strong tastebud for sourdough loaves. At Micro the team bakes the best sourdough in the whole Singapore I believe, and each time I part time there I end up increasing too strongly my Gluten intake 🙂 So normally at home I tend not to bake too much bread, especially as I don’t bake sourdough (not enough time commitment for that unfortunately) and tend to avoid yeast. But once in a while I am tempted to make my own bread, probably some kind of maternal manifestation of my love for my family (yes my kids and buddy are Bread lovers !). I had made a few previous attempts at no knead breads but they were not so successful (crust to soft, or dough not airy enough…) so when I found out about the Sullivan Street bakery no Knead Bread recipe on NY Times cooking website I was again tempted to give it another trial !
Made a few adjustments to the original recipe, twisting the flour and adding some seeds/ nuts. If you are stuck at home at the moment and are in the mood for baking, go for it, you won’t need to go out to buy bread tomorrow morning 🙂 confinement recipe validated ! and you will enjoy really good tartines for brekkie with your family. This recipe is really easy and you can make it with your kids ! Just need to plan resting time of min 14 hours (ideally around 16 🙂
As always, don’t hesitate to contact me if you make this recipe and have any question or feed back. ENJOY !
INGREDIENTS
3 cups flour : 1,5 cups spelt + 1,5 cup wholewheat* (can substitute with GF flour but bread density will be different, I have tried with Bob’s redmill 1 to 1 successfully )
1,5 cup water at 25 deg C
1 medium carrot grated (for extra fibers 🙂
1/2 cup seeds or nuts (choose whatever you like, I like hazelnuts or walnuts and pumpkin seeds also work very well 🙂
2 tbsp chia seeds
Optional 1/4 cup dried apricots / raisins / cranberries and if you choose them optional spices (0,5 tsp cinnamon or 0,25 tsp cardamon)
1,5 tsp sea salt
3/4 tsp dry instant yeast
INSTRUCTIONS
The day before (afternoon if you are planning to bake next morning), whisk all dry ingredients together i a large bowl, and add the water gradually. Stir well to combine everything well.
Cover the bowl tightly and leave it to rest on your countertop at room temperature.
16 hours later minimum:
Preheat your oven at 230 deg Celsius Fan forced.
Put your pan in the oven to preheat as well. You need to use a pan that has a lid and can go in the oven. Ideally a Staub / Le Creuset / Dutch oven kind of pan. It will help getting a nice crust and moist interior.
After 30 min preheating, scrape your bread dough out of the bowl. It should have well risen and be airy. it will be sticky so use some more flour to work on your dough and shape it in a ball form. You might need quite a fairly amount of flour depending on the flour you used. It’s normal ! Add flour and shape your dough until it gets the shape of a ball and is not sticky any more.
Transfer your dough on a baking paper sheet, scar it, and top with a little nuts/seeds if you want to.
Take out your Pan out of the oven, transfer the dough with the baking paper into it, drop some water on your lid (using a spray bottle works well 🙂 and close immediately the lid, then put back your pan in the oven for 35 min.
After 35 min, open the oven, remove the lid and let the bread crust get a nice colour for approx 10/15 min (check regularly).
Once you have a nice bread loaf with a nice golden or slightly darker crust (depending on your taste), take it out and leave on a grid to rest and cool down for min 1 hour before slicing (otherwise it will get mushy).
Enjoy immediately, or keep in a bread bag for a few days, or slice and freeze to eat on demand if you leave in SG 🙂
In French we say “avoir la banane” meaning “being happy” and yes bananas are a super fruit that puts a smile on my face ! They contain a fair amount of fibers and several antioxidants, and are proven to help digestion. They are quite sweet indeed but if you eat raw bananas go for the unripe bananas as their GI is only about 30 (whereas ripe bananas GI is approx 60). Great in smoothies and vegan nice creams, when you bake vegan cakes you also tend to use a lot of bananas as they are a good binder and can often help replace part of the eggs and also some oil in recipes.
In the banana bread though they are not an ingredient but THE STAR INGREDIENT of the recipe ! To ensure a tasteful and sweet loaf, chose them super ripe (which is super easy in SG) and if they are not ripe enough put them for sometime in your oven (with their skin) to speed up the process before using in your batter.
Banana bread have so many variations and so many people claim to have the best banana bread recipe, I am not gonna write this one is the best you’ll ever have 🙂 But if you look for a rich tasty flourless loaf, you’ll probably end up baking this one more than once !!
Moist, rich in protein and healthy fats, gluten free, refined sugar free, vegetarian but not vegan (you can replace eggs with egg replacer of flax eggs. It will still be good, but denser and more moist / won’t rise the same). GIVE IT A TRY !!
INGREDIENTS
- 200 grs almond meal
- 300 grs large mashed super ripe bananas + 1 banana sliced in 2 to top
- 3 large eggs ( or vegan equivalent)
- 50 grs maple syrup
- 50 ml olive oil
- 25 grs flax meal
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp salt
INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat oven to 160 °C fan forced.
- Whisk together eggs, mashed bananas, oil, vanilla, cinnamon and maple syrup.
- Add the almond flour and flax meal, salt, baking soda, lemon juice and stir until all smooth
- Transfer the batter to a pan lined with parchment paper and distribute the batter evenly. Add the 2 banana halves on top (and some flaked almonds if you want)
- Bake the loaf for approx 55 to 65 min until a toothpick comes out clean (if at some point it starts to become to dark on the top, cover with aluminium foil and continue baking)
- Once done, take it out from oven and let it cool in the pan before taking out and slicing.
- Can keep for 5 to 6 days in the fridge in airtight container, or be sliced and frozen for 2 months.
Hey everyone !
Have seen so many carrot cake posts on insta over the last few weeks, it reminded me I hadn’t done any for a long time.
The seriously good one I did a few months ago was not vegan with a super yummy icing… not super healthy but so satisfying I will do it again for sure 🙂
For today I wanted something more balanced, I could have for breakfast or as a light snack, and less sugary 🙂
So my recipe below is : vegan, GF, low fat and low calorie !
You can try and let me know your thoughts.. pretty sure you will not notice it is a healthy cake… but will definitely tick the “it’s a yummy cake” box 🙂
Follow the link below to go to the recipe.