This post is part of Cheeseslave’s Real Food Wednesday for March 3, 2010.
My daughter had a craving for some lemon bread from Starbucks, this is one of her favorite treats. Since we’re eating a lot less things with processed sugar and flour (even for treats), I turned to my handy copy of Nourishing Traditions and found a recipe for ‘Lemon Muffins’ which is a variation on the Basic Muffins recipe. Made a few changes because I now have some sprouted flour, and SCORE!! A good replacement for our white sugar treat. This bread is definitely not as sickenly sweet as the Starbucks version, but white sugar sweetened foods are really starting to taste way too sweet to me, and amazingly enough, the rest of the family is starting to feel the same way! This bread is even better the next day warmed up and topped with some grass fed butter. I ate it for breakfast and it kept me going all morning long. As you can see in the picture, there wasn’t much of the bread left by the time my sweet husband was able to take a picture of it!
The freshness of the sprouted wheat flour made all of the difference in this recipe. The loaf did not turn out dense, but it rose and had a similar texture that a white flour loaf would. However it did have a pleasant whole grain taste, and was filling in a good way. This is because sprouted flour is more digestible because the sprouting (germination) process removes all of the anti-nutrients. I received my flour from JoshEWEa’s Garden, and it was amazing! The freshest flour I have ever had my hands on.
If you don’t have sprouted flour, do not worry, I have included the original soaked flour recipe below as well as my variation.
Tips for making lemon (or other variation) muffins:
- Adding the lemon rind and juice of two lemons sounds like a lot of flavor, but it will be fairly muted in the finished product. For a stronger flavor I would suggest adding some organic lemon extract in addition to the rind/juice. If a hint of lemon is what you like, then just follow the recipe below.
- These are not overly sweet muffins, but if you’re used to less sugar already, you may want to try the original NT recipe version.
- I put the batter in one loaf pan, but these can be either muffins or bread. The bread will cook about 10-15 minutes longer.
Lemon Bread (or Muffins) – with Sprouted Wheat Flour
Rating: 4 forks (key)
Difficulty:
Easy
Page in NT: 482
Ingredients:
2 lemons
3 cups freshly ground sprouted wheat flour (for source, see JoshEWEa’s Garden)
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
2 eggs
1 teaspoon sea salt
3/4 cup grade B maple syrup
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon extract (optional)
3 Tablespoons melted butter
Preparation
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Zest the rind of both lemons, chop the zest and set aside. Cut both lemons in half and juice the lemons to make about 1/4 cup lemon juice. Add the lemon zest, juice, and all other ingredients into a bowl and mix. Pour into a well buttered loaf pan (10in x 5 in) or muffin pan, and bake for one hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Basic Muffins – Original NT recipe with Soaked Flour
Page in NT: 482
Ingredients:
3 cups freshly ground spelt, kamut or whole wheat flour
2 cups buttermilk, kefir or yogurt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 cup grade B maple syrup
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 Tablespoons melted butter
Preparation
Soak flour in buttermilk, kefir or yogurt covered in a warm place for 12-24 hours. Muffins will rise better if soaked for 24 hours. Preheat oven to 325. Blend in remaining ingredients. Pour into well buttered muffin tins that are about 3/4 full. Bake for about one hour or until a toothpick comes out clean. Makes about 15 muffins.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I look forward to trying these lemon muffins but I would have to soak the flour as don’t have sprouted flour. Would I still use the quantities of flour and buttermilk stated in the lemon recipe (3 cups flour & 1.5cups buttermilk) but just soak for <24hrs as stated in the basic muffin recipe?
Hi Olivia… you would need to increase the buttermilk to two cups to soak it with un-sprouted flour. Thanks for asking this as I realize that it’s not super clear in the post, so I will make an update… thanks!!
Hi Kim,
I tried this lemon bread soaking the unsprouted flour. I used 3 cups flour, 2 cups buttermilk and 3/4 cups maple syrup as well as the other ingredients. The bread stayed very dense and did not rise enough. It still tasted nice but was more like wet pudding. It must be because of combining the recipes there was too much liquid content. Or I’m not using the right cup size? I’m in the UK so I have been converting the cups to ml or grams according to online conversions I’ve found. Could you let me know how big your cup is? Eg how many ml of water would fill it. That way I can be more accurate following the recipes
I wish I could get some sprouted flour here but can’t find anywhere that sells it.
Olivia – A cup is a measure of volume, but for liquids it translates to 240ml. Yes, I think the problem was too much liquid. You could try the recipe using the original amount of maple syrup, or you could increase the amount of flour slightly. I think the sprouted flour gives better results.
Hi,
Where does one buy sprouted flour from?
My health food store doesn’t have it
Thanks!
For the muffin recipe, I was looking at the NT books and wanted to make blueberry muffins. But this is my first NT recipe YIKES! So I have never soaked or sprouted ANYTHING and am still not sure what it even means. =( The first step is to… “Soak flour in buttermilk, kefir or yogurt covered in a warm place for 12-24 hours”. How do I do that? Do I mix them all 3 together and just leave them sitting in a bowl (Covered or Uncovered?) in the refrigerator or on the counter overnight?