Sprouted Wheat Manna Bread

I am beyond excited about today's post. I have discovered a bread that is guilt free, filling, and extremely nutritious. It's called manna bread and is a staple of raw food vegans. This bread is "cooked" at very low temperatures, for the purposes of this post, 225 degrees, which basically just dehydrates the loaves. It can also be placed in a dehydrator for a period of time. Cooking at such low temperatures helps to preserve the enzymes, vitamins, good bacteria and other nutrients which would be lost at higher temperatures. Since I've made this bread four days ago, I've been eating it every day for breakfast in place of regular bread and I don't feel like I've missed a thing! Here we go...

Manna Bread:

Ingredients:
2 cups whole wheat berries (These will be sprouted. Instructions will follow.)
1/3 cup raisins
3/4 teaspoons sea salt (You can substitute regular salt if you would like, but it won't be as good for you.)

Step 1: Sprout the wheat. This takes about two days to do, so a little planning is in order, but it's worth it as sprouting grains increases their vitamin share exponentially. Did you know that whole wheat berries do not have any vitamin C when they are in a dormant state, such as when they are ground up into flour, but if they are sprouted, their vitamin C level jumps to over 2.8 mg per serving! That is 5% of the USDA daily recommended value. It's amazing! Soooo, here's how to do it...

Pour the wheat into a wide mouth quart jar...


(These photos show six to eight jars of wheat being sprouted. Most normal people don't sprout this much, but I had my reasons.)

...then fill the jar with water...


... and cover with cut out panty hose, cheese cloth, or other breathable fabric. I just used my jar rings to secure the panty hose, but you could also use a rubber band...


Let it sit on your counter for 8 to 12 hours or overnight. In the morning, drain off the water. I sometimes find that I have to push into the wheat through the panty hose, like so...


...in order for all the water to come out.

Next, put the jar upside-down, at a slight angle to allow the water to drain and enable appropriate breathing room for the wheat... ( I just used a towel-covered baking pan.)


Let the jar of wheat sit for 12 hours, then rinse the berries to keep bacteria from forming. I like to simply stick the faucet into the panty hose, like so...


...and let it run for a few seconds, then swish the wheat around, then drain.

Repeat this rinsing every twelve hours. Your sprouts should soon look like this...


(See the tiny bit of white sprouting out?)

...then finally, when the sprouts are about 1/4" long or almost as long as the wheat berry, they should look like this...


They are now ready to use! If you want to use sprouts in recipes other than manna bread, they are great on sandwiches in place of alfalfa sprouts, in oatmeal, in salads and baked in breads.

Note: Sprouts do not keep long in the fridge as they will keep growing and begin to taste very bitter. Make sure to use them within two to three days.

Step 2: Now that our wheat is sprouted, we can get back to the business of making the manna bread. Even though we only started out with two cups of wheat, we should now have about four cups of sprouts, as their size has doubled. Pour all of the sprouts in a food processor, along with the raisins and the sea salt.

Process for a couple of minutes until everything is well blended and you have a sticky dough, that looks like this...


Grease your hands with oil, then grab the dough out of the bowl and form a loaf about 8"x4". Trust me, you'll really need to grease your hands for this. The loaf should be no more than about 1 1/2" high or it will not dehydrate properly...


Step 3: Bake at 225 degrees for three hours. When your loaf is done, it will have a light-colored, thin, hard outer crust and a moist interior, kind of like a muffin...


When the loaf is cooled to room temperature, you can store it in a Ziploc bag to be used within two or three days, or you can wrap it in plastic...


...then store it in a Ziploc freezer bag in the freezer for later use...


Here's how I lay it on my plate...


And here's how I eat it, with natural peanut butter, raw honey, and psyllium husks...


I love it! This breakfast will keep me full for about five hours, but doesn't make me feel like I'm going to founder after I eat it. I again, have to thank my daughter, Bethany, for the inspiration for this recipe. She introduced me, by phone, to manna bread, something she is able to buy on a daily basis at the health food store, and I was so inspired that I had to surf the net and find out how to make it, as we don't have access to health food stores here in Mexico.

I hope you'll try this. It's really fun to learn to sprout and very fulfilling to know you're eating something so good for you! If you do try it, let me know how it goes!

I am pleased to list this post at...



-Tip Junkie's "Talk to me Tuesday",
-5 Minutes for Mom's "Tackle It Tuesday",
-Tammy's Recipe's "Kitchen Tip Tuesday",
-Blessed With Grace's "Tempt My Tummy Tuesday",
-Mary's "Tightwad Tuesday",
and -The Lazy Organizer's "Talk About Tuesday".

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