I don’t know about you, but when a photo of a hearty-looking bread with the label “Life-Changing Bread” enters my Pinterest feed, I immediately pin it and decide to make it the next day.
Lucky for me, when I checked the ingredients I had almost everything in my pantry except the chia seeds, psyllium husks and sunflower seeds. Somehow, without realizing it, I’ve become the kind of person who usually does have chia and sunflower seeds on hand, but I’d used them up. So I went to my local grocery store for the needed items, and this being Seattle, naturally they carried six different kinds of whole psyllium husks. That’s what they look like up there. And according to the recipe, this is the star ingredient due to the multitude of health and digestive benefits contained herein.
I got home, noticed with dismay that I had skipped the chia seeds when I got distracted by the dark chocolate covered raisins (not part of the recipe, but I just wanted some), but no worries! I had hemp hearts and figured that would be a fine replacement. You too have hemp hearts lounging around in your cupboards, right? The only other changes I made were to add almonds in place of hazelnuts and to use honey instead of maple syrup, just because I prefer the taste of honey. The recipe couldn’t be easier and I just mixed everything up and though a silicone bread pan is recommended, I don’t have one of those so I just used my ancient pan and let the mixture sit overnight. The raw mixture is what you see above. And this is what it looked like when it came out of the oven:
Not bad, I said to self as I took a nibble of the crumb. It looked like a gigantic granola bar. Side view:
So I sliced the loaf up, artfully layered some gouda cheese and avocado, and bit into the bread. I waited for my life to change. I chewed (and chewed and chewed). Then, ugh, a slimy texture emerged. Bad, I said to self. Concerned that maybe I hadn’t baked the bread long enough, I threw a slice into the toaster, slathered some butter and tried again. Chew chew chew. Slime.
I think I did something wrong. Or maybe the hemp hearts replacement was a misguided move. With enough butter and jam, it’s more than passable I’m sure, and I’ll be testing that out tomorrow morning. Alas, that seems to defeat the point of the bread and my life hasn’t been altered in a noticeably positive way. I still have high hopes that maybe if I follow the recipe to the letter, the bread will live up to its name next time…I will report back when I attempt life-changing loaf #2!
I’ve made this one before and really liked it- no slime, so maybe it was the hemp. I don’t know… I do know it involves a lot of chewing though!
You know, I cut some really thin slices and tried toasting them, and that seemed to help a lot! Although it might’ve been the nutella that truly helped…:-)
We’re a psyllium and chia seeds kind of household, too. I’ve been trying to cut down on bread so this sounds interesting, but the baker in me is veryyy skeptical.
I hear you, Kelli! I’m all about gluten, carbs and bread – I would never be able to cut down on bread if I lived in France! You are a brave woman – I’ll let you know how loaf #2 goes! 🙂
Ha! I am too. It was great until my doctor lectured me and called me a carb-a-holic! I guess vegetarians are supposed to eat more than bread and cheese for a meal >:(
If I could get away with it, I would eat only croissants, French bread with Brie (or butter and chocolate) and coffee. It’s the reason I love green juices so much – I get my veggies in a quick dose 🙂
Haha, I am still chuckling! I also pinned this! (life-changing? super sewing skills? perfect skin? count me in!) But sinve I have not gotten around to translating all the ingredients and hunting them down, I have not made it yet. But I will give it a try! Even though you were not so successful. I will let you know how it went! And the blogpost with the recipe does sound promising……;-) I am willing to believe it was the hemp hearts!
Oh, I didn’t even think about translating the ingredients to German…that must be challenging! Hope you have better luck with it than I did, Ute!
I did follow the recipe to the letter, well, except for the silicone pan, and found it decidedly not life-changing. Maybe not quite slimy, but definitely glutinous and raw-ish despite plenty of baking. I actually just threw away the remainder of the psyllium I bought to make it, because it was taking up too much space in my tiny New York apartment cupboard!
Ha! Mine looked raw too…and I baked it an extra 10 minutes (which made the bottom pretty crispy). I do think this would be pretty good if it baked all the way through – I really liked the crumbs on the outside 🙂
what? you had no psyllium husks in your cupboard? 🙂
I’m impressed that you even gave it a shot – so many “exotic” sounding ingredients tends to get me flustered – and on a goose chase here in the Midwest. I have been curious to try Chia seeds though, as my ultra healthy vegan raw GF friend touts their health benefits all the time. How do you use yours? Sprinkled over top of things? In your baking?
May attempt #2 be more successful! Will you be brave enough to finish loaf #1?
The jury is out on whether I’ll be able to finish loaf #1 – I’m finding honey and nutella and lots of butter to be necessary, rendering this bread into a waist-changing loaf. I actually used my chia seeds for my green juice! I added about a teaspoon for every batch and then ran out a little while ago. I hear it’s yummy on yogurt too, though I haven’t tried that yet.
“waist changing loaf ” LOL
try slicing the bread really thin and making wafers.. and add a cheese dip?
The thin toasted slices are definitely better! Mmmmm, cheese dip, now that’s a good idea.
I can’t imagine a bread with psyllium husks in it NOT being slimy. I mean, isn’t that what they become with water? slimy gooey slime? LOL
I’m sorry your bread was disappointing. Few things are worse than disappointing bread.
Good point, Bernadette! Between the flax, hemp hearts and psyllium, slime does seem inevitable! I’m not discouraged though and will definitely try again! 🙂
I have made it a few times successfully. I think you need to make sure you don’t have too much psyllium husks (I used the bulk stuff from Central Market) and the chia seeds suck up moisture thus making it drier. Another thing that can contribute to slime is flax, try using half ground, half whole flax or go all for ground (this made the biggest difference for me). And measure all liquids. Good luck! It is a tasty loaf when it comes out! My first one was a bit on the slimy side as well 🙂
Oh, this is so helpful, -anu! Thank you! I have both whole and ground flax, so I’ll try a combo or all ground next time. I thought the crunchy bits on the outside of the freshly baked loaf tasted great, so I’m excited to see if I can achieve success!
I’m not sure I have some of those ingredients in an hour radius of my house. I did try to make a very health conscious granola once, that was supposed to have amazing digestive benefits. It was basically whole flaxseeds and a few other ingredients, which was bland and boring, but doable…except for the slime. Oh, the slime…. I couldn’t do it.
Slimy granola….man, that could seriously dampen an appetite. I LOVE crunchy granola, which is quite possibly the best breakfast food. Sounds like whole flaxseeds might be the culprit, and now I’m feeling like the life-changing loaf might be within reach!
I haven’t tried that recipe, but the only life changing bread I know about is found in John 6:35 of The Bible. Good luck with your recipe.
Thanks Kristi! I’d love to cut down on my carb consumption and replace it with healthy “breads” like these, but we shall see…:-)
I tried this once. It was pretty good. Not slimy but it did take awhile to chew. I wasn’t a huge fan of it and my family didn’t like it. But it was fun to see if my life would change!
That chewiness was practically a workout! Maybe that’s the life-changing part: stronger jaws? I’m in the same boat – neither M nor K would touch it.
Ok this one cracked me up 🙂 I do hope it gets better because who wants to eat slime?
Slime is no good! It’s really weird because it’s not slimy at first…here’s to trying again. Onward and upward!
… you do know that Chia seeds are supposedly good for memory, so forgetting them in favour of chocolate covered raisins is hilarious! (and quite correct in my book!)
What’s life changing is when other people get a really good chuckle, their day is brightened and they live a little longer, and a little happier for it! Thanks!
Chia seeds and memory….ah, that explains so so much. 🙂 If my shenanigans can provide even a bit of humor, it was worth the slime!
Hilarious…slime?? Ick! Here’s a bread recipe I really like that is fast and you can add all sorts of seeds, nuts, husks(?), whatever! It’s dense, and sort of granola-y looking too…. kind of looks like the one above actually…ha. i love it with salted butter and honey. Good toasted for breakfast too. http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/easy-little-bread-recipe.html
P.s. love the cape from Monday and today’s dress! An email from liesl?? I’d fall off my chair too!! Having a hard time keeping up with my sewing blog obsession…so this is a three-fer!
Ooh, now this is a bread that sounds right up my alley: easy, fast and delicious. Thanks for the three-fer comment, Erin! I totally understand that feeling of trying to catch up with blog-reading!