When it comes to sourdough bread baking, I often enjoy a challenge and today for a bit of additional fun, I am making an Old Testament recipe using ingredients, that when baked are, known as Ezekiel Bread. Ezekiel, who was an Old Testament Prophet, warned the Jewish Nation of their impending doom and advised a food storage program of sorts.

“Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and fitches [spelt], and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof…”

Ezekiel Chapter 4, verse 9, King James Old Testament

But that set of ingredients, is pretty far from the modern health food known as Ezekiel Bread, which is made from sprouted grains So what’s the big deal with this commercial Ezekiel Bread?

April Benshosan, in Eat This, Not That! says:

“One slice of Ezekiel bread is only 80 calories and loaded with micronutrients and macronutrients that’ll keep you satiated and can help you lose weight or stay healthy. Plus, its ingredient list is totally pronounceable because it contains 100 percent wholesome good-for-you ingredients.”

When I read this claim, it sounded a lot like what Martha Levie, Abigail’s Oven Chief Baker, has to say about the health benefits of Abigail’s Oven Sourdough Bread. The difference is that commercial Ezekiel Bread sprouts its grains to minimize problems that are associated with whole grains, while Abigail’s Oven accomplishes this through long fermentation time periods for their sourdough bread.

Both processes make the grain more digestible without intestinal distress. And both methods minimize antinutrients, like phytic acid, from blocking vitamin and mineral absorption during digestion.

So the question is, is it the mix of wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, that somehow makes this bread more nutritious? Historically, research shows Ezekiel’s prophetic advice to be centered on the fact, that there would not be enough of any one type of grain to make good bread. And as Larry Yarbrough, a religion professor at Vermont’s Middlebury College, explained:

“This is real bread, but it’s not good bread… [becasue] there’s not enough of any one [kind of] flour to make it, so they’re making bread with whatever they can get a hold of. That’s what these grains are.”

Yarbrough explained that “good bread” would be made with “choice flour, oil, and honey.” So with his advice, I recently tried to adapt a Crusty Sourdough Greek Horiatiko Psomi using the whole grains Ezekiel listed, but with the additions Yarbrough says make bread good. However, the results were not light, it was rather dense.

So I moved back to our trusted Abigail’s Oven Ancient Grain recipes to see if I could get a better crumb, taste, and texture. And it worked, at least based on Chef Martin’s comment at Thermoworks. He stated that this bread is much better than the Ezekiel Bread you can purchase in stores, which for me means good eating.

Chef Martin Earl slices an Ezekiel Bread Bâtard in the Thermoworks demonstration kitchen, tells us it is one of the best he has ever tasted.

Sourdough Ezekiel Bread Bâtard

Serving Size:
4 16-inch Bâtards
Time:
12-24 hours
Difficulty:
Moderate

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Feed your starter with equal weights (113g) of flour and water (or a scant three-fourths cup of water and a heaping three-fourths cup of flour) so that you will have a full cup (226g) of starter to begin this recipe when it is fully active.
  2. Add all the flour and water in a cup of sourdough starter in your stand mixer or a large bowl. Work this dough into a shaggy mass and allow it to rest for 30 minutes.
  3. Then turn the dough onto a floured surface or with your mixer continue kneading until the dough is smooth and no longer sticky.
  4. Place the dough in a lightly oiled mixing bowl. Roll lightly to coat all sides and cover for a long ferment for 8 hours.
  5. After the 8+ hour-long ferment, dump the dough out onto an oiled surface and divide it into the number of loaves you want to bake (1-2 round boules or 4 long bâtards).
  6. Shape each into round boules or oblong bâtard shaped loaves.
  7. Cover the loaves and allow them to rise for another hour in a warm place.
  8. Preheat your oven to 430°F/220°C.
  9. Score the tops of the loaves in 3 or 4 places and bake just below the middle of the oven for 30-45 minutes until browned OR the internal temperature reaches 200°F/93°C. (When tapped on the bottom, the bread will sound hollow.)
  10. Cool the bread for several hours before slicing.