Brown Rice Seeded Bread
I have been cooking my way through Amy Chaplin’s newest cookbook “Whole Food Cooking Every Day” and I absolutely adore it. Her recipes are easy to adapt to what you have on hand and can act more like a simple “guideline” to exploring a recipe or playing around with new ingredients. She is plant based and even though I am not, I am finding so many wonderful recipes to get inspiration from. Her beet dressing was a HUGE hit in our home. I made mine with whole milk yogurt (find my recipe here) while she thickened her’s up with cashews. But that’s what is so awesome about the book. You can gather your inspiration (I would have never thought to make a beet salad dressing) and make it your own. One of the biggest game changers in our home over the past 2 months has been making different versions of her brown rice seeded bread. I love my homemade sourdough but it’s also really nice to have a hearty seeded grain loaf on hand. My little one-year old can’t get enough and it’s also a wonderful snack to have on hand if you’re out and about. I just cut mine up into slices and keep them in our to-go diaper/snack backpack and my babe loves it. Today I’m sharing the base recipe for this (I’ve adapted her original recipe to cater to our own ingredients/preference) but in the next few weeks I’ll share versions that include grated veggies, dried fruits, herbs, spices, and even a miso-turnip brown rice bread that turned out awesome last week! I hope you all enjoy this loaf as much as we do. This bread tastes best when toasted and served with your favorite toppings. Nut butter and chopped berries for breakfast. Hummus and a fried egg for lunch. Or served as open faced tuna melts. We’ve done it all and this bread is a great blank slate for all of your toast dreams! You do have to plan one night ahead to let your grains and seeds soak, but other than that it’s a simple and fast bread to whip up.
Happy baking everyone!
Brown Rice Seeded Bread
Prep Time: overnight Cook Time: 1 1/2 hours Serves: 1 loaf
- 1 1/2 cups short-grain brown rice, soaked overnight in 4 cups of room temperature water with 2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar (see note)
- 1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds, soaked overnight in 2 cups room temperature water
- 1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats, soaked in 4 cups of room temperature water with 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (see note)
- 1 cup water
- 2 Tablespoons psyllium husks
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- mixed seeds for topping the loaf (sunflower, pumpkin, poppy seeds, fennel seeds, etc.)
Preparation
- Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a standard 4 1/2 by 8 1/2 inch loaf pan with parchment paper, leaving at least a 1-inch overhang on each side. Set aside.
- Pour the soaked rice, seeds and oats into a large strainer and rinse well. Shake the strainer a bit to let the grains/seeds drain well. Transfer the mixture to the bowl of a food processor. Add the 1 cup of water, psyllium husks, baking soda, oil and salt, and process until well combined and the grains have broken down but the mixture still has a bit of texture. Scrape the sides and process again. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan, making sure to spread it into the corners. Sprinkle the top with the extra seeds and bake for 40 minutes.
- Rotate the pan and bake for another 40-45 minutes or until the edges of the bread are golden and have pulled away from the pan. Use the parchment paper overhang to lift the loaf our of the pan and onto a wire rack to cool. Cool the bread for 1 hour before slicing or it will still be sticky inside. On the day it is baked, this bread has a hard crust, but it softens after a day. Sore the loaf in an airtight container at cool room temperature for 3 days or in the fridge for 7 days.
- This bread tastes best when eaten lightly toasted.
Notes
The rice and oats need to be soaked with an acid like vinegar or lemon juice to help bread down phytic acid. Make sure to rinse them well to remove the sour flavor from the acid.
Can’t wait to try this! It looks delicious!
I am so excited about this method of making bread! For my first loaf I followed your recipe as is (except for subbing half apple cider for water to add a touch of sweetness). So excellent! I am going to try subbing millet for the rice in my next loaf. Thanks!