Yummy paleo bread – gluten free & no added sugar

How I love bread. You’d say the same right? Last week my hubby persuaded me to watch a documentary about extreme bodybuilders. Bodybuilders with a diet restricted to pretty much eggs, turkey and broccoli. A diet that any reasonable person would struggle to handle for more than a couple of days. One guy said he missed bread so much that he’d often just have a mouthful and chew it for the flavour and then spit it out. Of course this is extreme. But, in reality, with the rise of low carb, gluten free and increasingly paleo diets more of us are giving up or restricting bread. Personally I keep bread for the occasional treat (usually in the form of homemade pizza dough) but I really miss having something to dunk into pumpkin soup and soft boiled eggs.

That’s where this post comes in – I’m sharing a recipe from my new cookbook – called ‘Going Paleo’ from Pete Evans. I’ve looked at different paleo bread recipes and what I really like about this one is the relatively simple mix of ingredients. I tried it a couple of times before drafting this post so I could add some extra tips too.

This paleo recipe is:

Gluten free (grain, wheat and dairy free)
Free of refined sugar and vegetable oils
High in protein and fibre
Low in carbohydrates

And as if that wasn’t good enough to inspire you then note that this bread takes only 10 minutes to prepare and just over one hour to cook. So what are you waiting for?

Recipe thanks to Pete Evans – Going Paleo

Ingredients

100g (1 cup) almond meal
50g (1/2 cup) coconut flour
4 tbsp psyllium husk powder
2 tsp baking powder
8 eggs, beaten until fluffy
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp mixed dried herbs (optional)
Sea salt & black pepper

Newcomer to coconut flour? You can read more about how it’s a fantastic gluten free, low carb substitute for wheat flour on this helpful page at nuts.com

Method

Preheat your oven to 120C. Tip – a fan setting seems to work better than conventional, perhaps because of the relatively low temperature.
Grease a standard loaf tin with butter or olive oil, and then line the base and sides with baking paper.
Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl – be sure to first sift the almond meal and coconut flour. Tip – experiment with the dried herbs (I use thyme & rosemary).

Beat the eggs. Tip – beat the eggs until they are really light and fluffy.

Add the remaining ingredients. Tip – Don’t forget to season with salt & pepper.
Transfer the mixture into the baking tin and spread out evenly.
Bake in the oven for 80 minutes (or until a skewer inserted into the bread comes out clean).
Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin, then transfer to a wire rack.

Slice and enjoy. Tip – this bread also freezes well once sliced.

Serve as you would standard bread. Just be conscious that it a fairly dense bread and so I’ve found that just a couple of small slices are enough to keep me full for hours. I’ve been enjoying it with my homemade kale pesto.

And I must mention how ironic it is that I drafted this post surrounded by some of Sydney’s best sourdough bread, at Bourke Street Bakery. I stuck to the coffee though……