Yum
I have been dreaming of bread….
A nice slice of grainy… bite into…. have to chew… kind of bread….
I had been feeling a little sluggish… actually bloated… no … to be truthful…. fat would be the most appropriate word, since the holiday season. It must have been all that food! 🙂 I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with the Dukan Diet but it’s one that has been around for a few years now and there are numerous sites that offer information as well as recipes. I believe that before she got pregnant Princess Catherine was alleged to be on this diet and it seemed to make the news, at least that’s how I remember first hearing about it.
At any rate this diet is supposedly similar to the Atkins diet, though I’ve never really read up on that one, and one of my daughters says it’s also not much unlike the currently popular Paleo diet. Whatever they call it the diet essentially forces you to cut out all the bad white stuff… white sugar (or any sugar for that matter), flour and so on. You also cut out starchy carbs and fruit (high sugar) until you clear out your system and get to your goal weight. Though you do need to have fibre in your diet on a daily basis and this diet calls for daily oat bran throughout all the phases. Once you reach your goal weight then you add back the carbs and sugars slowly and only in moderation. Things, I at least, don’t think we should be eating much of anyway aside from the fruit of course … nature’s candy.
So, with a new year starting and the ‘sweet’ holidays over with I decided I would get back on track. Gone are my morning coffee with loads of sugar and… no kidding… whipping cream… seriously… I can’t even talk about how good those are! And gone are my afternoon pepsi or cokes when I need a pick-me-up and gone is the half loaf of fresh baked bread I devour on my way home from grocery shopping because I’m starving and haven’t eaten yet…. Yes these are my confessions.
I’ve now been on this diet, or what I like to call a ‘cleanse’ for about 2 weeks and though I have not been hungry at all after the first couple of days… I have to say that the thing I miss most is bread… there are tons of sites that provide oat bran and egg white concoctions that have a spongy consistency. That will certainly work in a pinch and I’ve made many of them into muffins and added cocoa or cinnamon or something to fool myself into thinking they are tasty but I was on a hunt for some really good “bread”!?
I found this recipe on one of the discussion boards here posted by Patacake and what struck me about it is that it’s the first time I’ve seen a Dukan friendly bread recipe that actually uses yeast and requires baking. Somehow the ones that are cooked in the microwave don’t appeal to my sense of what ‘bread’ is…. call me crazy… 🙂
I was excited at the thought of eating ‘bread’ guilt free and went for it… maybe it’s my lack of bread in the last 2 weeks, maybe it’s just that good…. but I would say…. Oh MY GOD … I think I can actually live without bread and eat this instead. To be sure, it’s not the same as white French bread but if you like grainy bread and gravitate towards whole wheat seedy stuff, I’ll tell you… this is a fabulous substitute!
Dukan Bread (makes 1 loaf)
(My adaptation of Patacake’s recipe)
- 10 tbsp oat bran
- 10 tbsp wheat bran
- 8 tbsp skim milk powder
- 1 pinch of salt
- 3 tsp dry active yeast
- 1 tbsp fat-free yogurt
- 4 tbsp fat-free cream cheese
- 3 eggs
- 5 tbsp warm water
- 1 tbsp or more caraway seeds (and a bit extra to put on top) – optional
- 1 tsp coarse sea salt for the top – optional
Preheat the oven to 390 degrees F. Mix the eggs, cream cheese and yogurt in a bowl and mix the water and yeast in a separate bowl. Once the yeast combination starts to bubble mix it with the egg, cheese and yogurt mixture.
In the meantime mix all dry ingredients together and then combine wet and dry together mixing well.
Pour the mixture into a loaf pan either silicone or regular pan lined with parchment, sprinkle with sea salt and caraway seeds. You can leave out the caraway seeds and extra salt if you want just regular whole wheat-like bread or add them in… I made BOTH! Bake at 390 degrees for 10 minutes then reduce temperature to 355 for an additional 20 minutes. You can also let this bread ‘rise’ a bit in a warm place prior to baking and I’ll try that next time.
This recipe contains 5 days allowance of oat bran and 5 days worth of tolerated items. You can slice the bread into 20 and then have 2 slices a day and make up the rest of the oat bran allowance in other ways… or you can slice them thicker like I do and just simply enjoy!!!!!
This bread is supposed to freeze well but honestly, I can’t speak to that.