A homemade multigrain bread loaf is such a soul-satisfying experience – from baking it to serving and savoring it in different recipes! This simple loaf is made using different grains like wheat, oats, jowar/sorghum/white millet and bajra/pearl millet in an easy recipe that creates a soft, tasty and rustic bread that you will love serving to your friends and family.
Ingredients (makes a medium sized loaf – was enough for a lunch for 4):
- Organic unbleached all-purpose flour (3 cups)
- Wheat flour (1/4 cup)
- Oat flour (1/4 cup)
- Jowar (sorghum/white millet) flour (1/4 cup)
- Bajra (pearl millet) flour (1/4 cup)
- Salt (to taste)
- Sugar (/2 tsp)
- Oil (2 tsp)
- Water (1.5 cups)
- Yeast (a 1/4 oz packet)
Method:
- Warm water until tepid. Transfer it into a wide bowl.
- Add yeast to water and mix until it dissolves.
- Add salt, sugar, oil and 2 cups of flour to the yeast mixture.
- Mix well and beat until smooth.
- Now add the remaining flour and knead to form a soft dough.
- Transfer dough onto a floured surface and knead for 8-10 minutes until the dough is smooth. This is an important step, if not done appropriately may produce crumbly bread.
- Grease a bowl (you may use the same one you used to initially make the dough). Place dough into bowl. Turn the dough after a couple minutes so that the other side also gets greased.
- Cover the bowl and place the dough inside the oven (not turned on) or any warm place for 1.5 hours. It will rise to double its original size.
- Take the dough out of the bowl. Punch the dough down. Shape the loaf. Place in a greased pan. Cover and let rise until doubled (takes about 35 minutes).
- Bake at 375 F for 35-40 minutes until the edges are golden brown. When tapped, the hot bread should sound hollow.
- Transfer to a wire rack and let the loaf cool down completely, before slicing. Slice it carefully with a serrated knife when the loaf is completely cool, to prevent crumbling.
Serving Suggestions:
-
Grilled Vegetable Panini:
- Spread hummus on 2 slices of bread. Hummus recipe can be found here. Optionally, you may use almond butter for one slice and hummus for the other. Almond butter recipe can be found here.
- Saute vegetables like kale, bell peppers, zucchini and season with sea salt and pepper. Use these vegetables as a filling.
- Grill the panini after spreading a little butter on the top slice and the bottom of a pan on medium to high heat.
”
-
Almond Butter Jelly Sandwich
- If you want to make jam/jelly at home, follow the recipe here.
- Spread almond/peanut butter on one slice and jam/jelly on the other.
Tastes (Rasa):
Sweet (wheat, oats, white and pearl millet), sour (none), salty (salt), bitter (none), pungent (none), astringent (millet).
Doshic Influence:
Wheat is kapha aggravating since it is heavy, sweet and sticky in nature. It is harder to digest, so slightly vata aggravating. Pittas with a strong digestive fire can digest wheat. But this is not to say that wheat should be eaten only by pittas. Avoid eating it too often, especially kaphas and vatas (few times a week is fine or smaller servings are better). Oats is again kapha aggravating because it is sweet, gooey and heavy. It is great for vatas and pittas. Kaphas can consume it in moderation. Millet is light, dry and warming, so great for kaphas. These grains are all mixed in this bread recipe, making it suitable for consumption by vatas and pittas and even kaphas, although moderation is the key for kaphas. Ayurveda considers yeast to be heavy on the digestive system and potentially over-heating to certain body tissues and organs, such as the blood and the liver. So, flat breads, chapatis or rotis are a better alternative since they don’t use yeast. Compared to the store-bought alternative of bread that potentially contains additives, preservatives, dough conditioners and other toxic ingredients., I believe that baking a simple loaf occasionally, using yeast is okay.