Bread of Power Not Flour

A collaborative instructable with Dancing_Sam...  

This bread will make you strong*. Lots of people find that flour, particularly wheat flour, does not bring out the best in them. While life might be dull unless we eat carb filled bread to exploding point every now and then, flour from wheat (and many other high carb grains) can leave us sluggish, tired and more hungry.... But avoiding all bread is a major bummer, how could anyone deny themselves the joys of the mighty sandwich? The solution: the bread of power!

This bread contains lots of goodies that you might not consider typically 'bready'. Fear not! This will give you all that sandwiching potential and not take away from your healthy aliveness. It is dairy free, gluten free, wheat free and vegetarian (but not vegan, sorry). Why the bread of power? It is high protein and has lots of good things like Omega 3 in it, plus it doesn't take too long to make, and it tastes yum -yehhaaaa!

*Well, it might, it certainly should not make you weak, unless you have a nut allergy!

Step 1: Ingredients

For one loaf you will need:

Foody things

• 5 eggs (big organic, free range ones are best)
• 70g (2.5oz) of walnuts 
• 70-90g (2.5-3.5oz) of seeds
• One courgette / zucchini (medium size)
• salt and/or handful of salty peanuts
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
• Optional secret seasoning

Variations:
You can probably use whatever combo of seeds and nuts you like, but we haven't tried them all, so as always experimentation is in order!

Try replacing zucchini with carrot and/or apple for a sweeter version or mashed up pulses (butter beans, chickpeas etc) for even more protein and a slightly different texture. 
You could add fresh herbs or cheese, there is vast potential for food jazzing here...


Hardware:

• Two bowls, one to whisk egg whites in, one to mix the other ingredients
• A tool or method to grind walnuts and seeds into a flour-like crumb (no Bongo, we're not using the pillar drill again!)
• A bread tin or tins (this quantity needs a large, 1lb/450 gram loaf tin or two smaller ones)
• Baking paper to line tins
• Whisk
• Spoon, knife
• Grater
• Scales or willingness to guesstimate
• An oven (will want preheating to gas mark 5, 180C, 350F)

Step 2: Grind It!

First up, get all your nuts and seeds together and into whatever tool you are going to use to grind them up.

We have a little mini mixer that is AMAZING at this and this only take a few seconds to make a nice magic crumble mix (fine, dry particles of food matter). 

Step 3: Separate the Eggs

So, we want all the yolks in one bowl, and all the egg whites in the other one. This can be a bit fiddly but it is really important not to get any yolk in with the egg whites (it doesn't matter if a bit of white goes in with the yolks).

Here we are using the egg shells to do the separation: break the shell gently with a knife, and open up carefully, holding over the bowl for the egg whites. Then carefully transfer the yolk from one half of the shell to the other, letting the egg white slip into the bowl at each turn, until it is mainly yolk you are left with. This goes in the yolk bowl. 

Step 4: Mix in the Zucchini

Grab your grater (or if you want to go with a gadgety theme, grab your grinding gadget)

Grate up the zucchini and add to the egg yolk.

Give it a stir, hmmm, all gold and green...

Step 5: Mix in the Magic Crumble

Now time to add the nutty, seedy, magic crumble to the glorious gold and green concoction...

At this point you can add any extra flights of seasoning fancy, it could be as simple as salt, or complex as a unique curry blend...

Step 6: Construct an Egg White Mountain

Now select your whisk. We opted to just change attachments on the mini mixer, if you have one it will save a lot of time and arm ache, but you'll miss out on strength training!

Whisk the egg whites until they form 'soft peaks' - foamy, but not firm.
Then add that little bit of cream of tartar and continue whisking.
Keep going until you can make 'firm peaks' (or mountains), the mix will seem a fair bit dryer now.

Step 7: Avalanche

Time to reunite the eggs. Take your lovely white mountain and tip it into the eggy, nutty, veggie mix.

Gently combine the two. A metal spoon drawing 3d figures of eight, or 'folding in' is always how such operations are described in the cook books.

When the mixes are roughly together, pour into your lined baking tin (s).

Step 8: Oven Time

Pop in the oven (gas mark 5/180C/350F). Pre-heat first, all ovens are different here, ours only takes 5 minutes to warm up. Our advice is to turn on before you whisk the egg whites so time between whisking and cooking is minimal. If your oven takes a while, might be best to whack it on at the very start.

If you went for one big tin, it'll be about 20 minutes before you need to check on it, and probably another 10 minutes further down the oven/ on a lower temperature to make sure the middle is done. It will take less time in two smaller tins.

Step 9: Eat and Have POWER!

Wooo, we have a grain and cereal free bread we can spread things on and make sandwiches with!

It will be quite a bit more moist than normal bread, with an interesting texture, which is rather delicious. Really you have just made a bready, high protein, no dairy version of a soufflé.

Testing so far concludes that you can successfully lightly toast the bread under a grill . Toasters are not such a great idea unless you are super careful and watch out for burning. 

The bread of power does like to be kept cool, preferably in the fridge. Like any fresh bread it is best eaten up before it goes 'funny' (all of ours have been gobbled up in a few days, so we're not sure exactly how long it keeps).   

Go forth and experiment, and feel free to share your results too!

Comments

[ajf666]

I have made this lots, using it as a bread substitute, great recipe to play about with, creating different flavours. thanks for posting was worried about doing without bread.

[bongodrummer]

Awesome. That's good to hear! :)

[greeneable86]

Is there a recipe without nuts?

[lamuella]

I was really excited to make this, but encountered an issue that I'm hoping someone can help me with. I made it with the ingredients described (with pecan meal instead of walnuts). I baked it for 20 minutes at 350F, then another 15 at 325F because it was still very wobbly ("souffléness" was a word I saw used). It was still very wet (toothpick test), so I baked it another 20 minutes at 350F.

It still seemed like it wasn't done, but I've never done a soufflé and thought I would let it cool based on the comment that it firms up after a while. Mine did not, and seems very eggy. :(

The two questions I have are:
1) How does one check whether a flour-less bread like this one is done? I've made flour based breads at 360F for 55 minutes before that turned out well.
2) I'm currently refrigerating it but have concerns about throwing it back in the oven to try and finish it off. I see one user re-ovened it with success, but was wondering how likely it is to turn it into a brick, or loaf-shaped bacteria colony.

In any case, thanks very much for the recipe as well as for the helpful comments from others!

[FreckledR]

Man this looks so good!

[PeterP4]

Does this bread taste eggy?

[bongodrummer]

Not is a typical eggy-bread kind of way. Try it.

[iamaqtpoo]

Great recipe but the title is even better!! Thanks for sharing with us :) Mary

[smekeel]

great recipe!

[PoulGrym]

Lovely! I'll have a go of this goodness tomorrow! Just looks so great! Is there a good subsitute for peanuts? They are a bit rich in the "carbs" department.

[bongodrummer]

Sure. Try using any kind of nut... I had always though to peanuts as almost carbohydrate free, but looking at the back of my peanut butter jar, I see it is just proportionally low in carbs - there is more than 2 times as much protein and even more fat. I cant get enough of the stuff! 
For interest per 100g: - Protein 28g, Carbohydrate 13g (of which Sugar 4g), Fat 51g, fibre 7g, sodium trace.  (no added sugar, unsalted peanut butter, yummm).  

[Flagg707]

Hey - I made this last weekend. It was an excellent recipe, though a bit different.

I used six eggs instead of 5 as mine were store-bought eggs and not as large as the fresh ones I see normally. I also used two smallish apples instead of the zuchinni.

I baked one large loaf at 350 deg F for 15 minutes or so and then at 300 deg F for nearly thirty minutes. I liken it to cooking a brownie mix. Good taste, especially improved by spreading honey on it and eating.

Thanks for posting this recipte. I'll be cooking this again in the future.

[eviloverlord]

If you find your egg whites collapsing when folding in, try adding 1/4 tsp or less of Xanthan gum to them as you start mixing. Add slowly using a sieve as it binds to water instantly and thus can clump easily. Once added you couldn't collapse your egg whites if you tried.

[zomfibame]

ohh that looks mighty good!

[chapa-de-frente]

Ive GOT to do this!

[Semilove]

I tried your loaf as is and was happy, but my husband was not. I told him I would experiment more and so far this is what I've tried. Since I don't use salt, I think this may have contributed to the overall flavor for him.

I used carrot with fresh OJ & fresh apple juice and used about a cup of my homemade almond flour (left over from another instructable favorite - Almond Milk). These did not turn out sweet or even delicious. As I ate one all I could think of were raisins. :(

Currently, I've taken the remainder of both loaves (yes, baked) and mixed them with more nuts/seeds, more of the almond flour and some water and will rebake with a bit of local honey & agave syrup to kick up the sweetness level a bit. I'll add eggs later. . .

In addition, I've added some yeast and will let it sit for a while to see what happens. Maybe I won't need more eggs! Oh, the thoughts I think! I will let you know how it all turns out!

Yippee for the Bread of Power - Not Flour!

[Semilove]

Okay, added hulled hemp seeds, flax seeds and pecan flour [NOTE: pecan and almond flours are made solely of nuts!] and this DID rise, but was too wet after I added a couple more eggs. So I added about one cup of bread flour and kneaded well. Boo hooo!

Had to wait about an hour for it to rise, but final loaf was dense, heavy and moister than regular bread. I could eat this every day! Absolutely Delicious!

[Semilove]

One more thing. I hate overfried egg yolks. Any 'brown' on my fried egg and I send it back and can't eat eggs for weeks! The original leftovers were quite incorporated into the batter and substituted for any carrot/zucchini so egg concerns were not the issue.

As for the honey and avaga syrup: I only used about one teaspoon of each and it was plenty! I wouldn't encourage more. It just took the edge off. As I mentioned, I truly liked the original. It's to get my husband to eat it!

Can't wait for more of your recipes! When I told friends that I made bread without flour they immediately asked for the recipe & I provided the link kso I bet you'll get lots of followers!

Thanks again for this recipe! Truly wonderful and creatively delicious!

[bongodrummer]

Thanks Semilove! More coming soon. In the meantime have you seen the Emergency Breakfast Cakes?

[bongodrummer]

Sounds like you are doing some fine experimenting. Though I would be weary about re-ovening stuff, burnt egg is yuk, and obviously, depending on the time periods involved, you have to be a bit careful with the re-heating encouraging bacteria.

Let us know how the yeast affects things...

Your second one sounds more like a cake of power! You are obviously keen on sweetness - I have made it in the past using grated carrot, instead of zucchini, and it was quite sweet for my tastes. But then I guess sweetness is in the buds of the devourer.

I wonder what the OJ did to the egg airiness? I imagine it doing wacky jazz?
Thanks,
B.