More Sprout Bag Photos & Recipes

Sproutman's Basic Sprout Bread Recipe

By Steve Meyerowitz, Sproutman®
(extracted from Sproutman’s Kitchen Garden Cookbook by Steve Meyerowitz)

Step 1) Soak 1 cup of hard wheat berries in a jar for 8-10 hours. Wheatberries are available from your health food store.

Step 2) After soaking, sprout the berries in a sprout bag (preferred) or a jar for 2 days. Be sure to rinse the seeds at least twice per day.

Step 3) Examine the seed and focus on the length of the shoot. The shoot is short, thick and grows in the opposite direction of the hair-like roots. In order to achieve the desired consistency, the shoot must be approximately the length of the berry. Typically, this is two days growth. Keep in mind that longer shoots will make the bread too chewy.

Step 4) Now grind the sprouts to a paste in a food processor. If you don’t have a food processor, grind them in any grinder that will turn the sprouts into a paste. Some other appliances that also work are a wheatgrass juicer, a single auger vegetable juicer (such as the Sampson or the SoloStarII), a twin gear juicer such as the Greenstar, a Champion juicer, or a cast iron meat grinder. For the juicers, be sure to use their homogenizer feature. Blenders, even powerful ones like the Vita Mix, do not work. Whichever machine you use, it is crucial that the resulting “sprout dough” be ground thoroughly to a smooth paste. If necessary, reinsert the sprouts for a second run through the grinder. A smooth paste or “dough” makes for a softer, delectable bread. On the other hand, chunks of unground sprouts turn hard like chewing on pebbles in your bread!

Step 5) Grab the dough in hand and form a 3 x 3 inch loaf. Wet your hands frequently while shaping the loaf. Take this opportunity to kneed the loaf so the dough becomes smoother and more consistent.

Step 6a) Warm Oven Method. Lay the loaf on flat oven tray such as a cookie sheet. Prepare the tray with a light layer of sesame or poppy seeds. This keeps the bread from sticking to the tray and is an alternative to using oil. Bake slowly at 250 degrees F. Typical bread baking temperatures are 450 degrees F. This temperature, while not being raw, allows you to successfully create a “loaf” of bread similar to the Essene breads you find in the health food store freezer. Cooking time is approximately 3 hours. It could take an hour longer. It all depends on how thick you make your loaf and the accuracy of the thermostat in your oven. Lift the bread off the baking tray momentarily after 1-2 hours of baking. This ensures there will be no sticking of the bread bottom to the tray. The bread is ready when the underside is firm and no longer mushy. The inside of the bread will remain slightly moist while the top of the bread may harden.

Step 6b) Dehydrator Method. Modify step 5 in this method by forming a flat bread instead of a loaf. Throw the loaf on a wood cutting board and flatten it to approximately one-half inch. This is the “real” Essene bread. The Essenes were a religious tribe that inhabited the area near the Dead Sea in current day Isreal. They baked their flat breads on stones in the hot Middle East sun. This is the original unleavened bread or “matzoh.” We replicate these sun temperatures in the dehydrator. 115 degrees F. should be your maximum. Lay it out on butcher’s wrap paper or something similar so it does not drip. Drying time will be approximately 10 hours. The bread should be thoroughly dry. Break off a piece to test it. If there is moisture in the center, put it back in the dehydrator. Moisture creates mold and requires refrigeration. On the other hand, a fully dry bread needs to be stored in a moisture proof bag or container and can be stored for weeks as with any dried foods.

Enjoy this one ingredient sprout bread. Once you have achieved success, consider adding other ingredients for flavor and texture. And there are also other many versions of this recipe from which you can make pizzas, bagels, cookies, crackers, and more. And other grains such as spelt, Kamut, rye, etc. For all these and more, please check out my Kitchen Garden Cookbook.

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Mung Beans. Sproutman's Sprout Bag's can grow almost one pound of delicious, crunchy mungs.

Roll the collar back to add more light to green up leafy varieties. Fenugreek is growing here.

Radish sprouts getting more light. Green leafy sprouts get more light in verticle sprouters.

This is what you shouldn't use. Jars compress sprouts tightly binding them so they break upon yanking them out. Not enough air circulation. Inadequate drainage. Jars were never intended to be used as gardening tools.

A five year old sprout bag. Turn the bag inside out to rinse it clean under hot water. No soap required.

Mung, Radish, & Pea sprouts

Bean Sprouts grown by my Italian friend Bavicchi.

Crunchy bean mix growing in a 5 year old sprout bag.

Sproutman's Famous SPROUT COOKIE

By Steve Meyerowitz, extracted from Sproutman’s Kitchen Garden Cookbook

Ingredients

2 cups Soft wheat berries
1 cup Raisins
1 cup Coconut, shredded
2 tsp Vanilla extract
Yield: 25–35 cookies

Walk into any grocery store in America and dare to find a cookie made without sugar and flour. It’s nearly impossible! True, if you shop at a natural foods store, you can purchase cookies and desserts sweetened with honey, maple syrup, molasses, rice syrup, barley malt and fruit juice concentrate. It is a delight to behold. But the sprout cookie does not use any added sweeteners, nor any flour! How could this be? Is it truly a cookie? The secret is in the sprouts!

As the tiny soft wheat berries germinate, they diligently break down and simplify their starches into grain sugar—maltose. They make their own sugar! To this, one may discreetly add a few raisins or other dried fruits to enhance the natural sweetness, but never any added sugar or sweeteners. Here, soft wheat is germinated for just 2 days and the sprouts are then ground into a paste. In that paste are many things you cannot find in Wonderbread—wheat germ, bran, fiber from the roots and plenty of B-vitamins and protein.

Form the sprout dough paste into cookie size shapes, add your raisins or dried fruit and it’s ready to go into the oven. That’s all. No kneading, no yeasting...nothing. Here’s the process, step by step.

Sprout 2 cups of soft white wheat berries for 2 days and grind them to a smooth paste following the procedure for making Basic Sprout Bread (see p.7.) Form the dough and mix it with the raisins, coconut and vanilla. With clean, wet hands, shape the dough into little 1 inch balls. Rinsing your hands periodically helps keep your hands clean of the pasty dough. Lay the balls on a cookie sheet that is matted with poppy or sesame seeds. These cookies do not rise, so if space is tight, they can be placed side by side, almost touching. Sprouts like it that way. Their shape resembles macaroons. Bake at 250°F. for 11⁄2 to 2 hours. They are done when firm but still moist.

SONG : "WHY THE SPROUT BAG"

A Rap Song (set to rap music rhyme)

©1981 by Steve Meyerowitz, Sproutman®

Jars are real sad

'Cause for sprouting they're so bad.

The Bacteria they enclose

Smells so rotten to your nose.

You can stop growing old

Fight'n mean Mr. Mold.

Chuck the jars,

They're a drag,

Graduate up to the bag.

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