Manna bread isn’t really bread as we know it. It’s a mixture of germinated whole wheat seeds and water, cooked slowly for a long time. Because the the seed is sprouted when you use it, manna bread is not a simple carbohydrate. It is a complex one, packed with vitamins and fiber. It also tastes good. Where there are health stores in the USA, they usually sell this perishable product in the refrigerator case. They have various versions of it – with added fruit, with other grains, etc.
The bread in this recipe is not, strictly speaking manna bread. I have taken the liberty of adding things to make it tastier, add vitamins, and get a bread that is less mushy than The Real Thing. The Real Thing is made only of sprouted wheat and water. It is flat and dense. And we yentas can never leave anything alone.
Yucatan Yenta manna bread
In Merida, manna bread isn’t sold in the stores. Monique Duval used to make it at her bakery, but it’s labor intensive and takes forever to cook plus there weren’t many weirdos like me who wanted it. But Monique does know where to buy organic wheat seeds wholesale, so I buy mine from her, at a reasonable price. And I amuse her by recounting my latest manna bread experiments.
I want to note here that no bread in town comes remotely close to the stuff Monique bakes. Cookies, all kinds of breads, both sweet and savory, incredible stuff. To get on her mailing list and receive her product list, you can reach her at: Xmoniqueduval@aol.comX (Remove the X’s from the beginning and end of the email address before using it.) She makes dozens of different products every week, available on Fridays at her bakery in Chuburna.
Alas, I’ve been reduced to making my own manna bread. It’s kind of fun. You have to germinate the wheatberries first, which takes about two days, so plan ahead.
Ingredients
- Organic wheat seeds (aka trigo entero, wheatberries) – about 2/3 kilos
- purified water
- 2 eggs
- coffee* (liquid)
- salt – 1/4 tsp.
- wheat flour – 1/2 cup
- cinnamon – 1 tsp.
- a medium-sized carrot*
- 1 cup pecans*
- 1 cup raisins
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries, or diced apple, or dehydrated (non-sweetened) apple, or pear, or any one of a variety of fruits – no citrus and no banana.
- honey*
Process
- Sprout about 2/3 kilos of organic wheat seeds. Procedure explained below.
- Us a powerful food processor to pulverized the sprouted seeds. You will need to add the eggs and some liquid during this step. Run the food processor for about six minutes until the batter is somewhat smooth.
- Next add the wheat flour , cinnamon, salt, and baking powder and mix for a minute.
- Add the carrot or any other very hard fruits or vegetables and mix 30-50 seconds.
- Now you are getting to the delicate stuff. You don’t want to pulverize the fruit or nuts, so dump them in and just mix 30 seconds. Check and see how they look. That could be enough or you might need another 20 seconds. Use half the pecans and all the fruit.
- The batter should be gooey and sticky, not loose. Spoon it into pre-greased baking pans. I get two pie-sized breads out of this.
- Drop half a cup of pecans evenly over the top and drizzle with honey, if you want to.
- Bake in a convection oven at 275 for two hours.
Germinating Wheat Berries
- Put wheat seeds in a transparent glass or plastic jar. Fill the jar to the top with purified water and let it sit a few hours. Then, swish it around to rinse the seeds, and dump out excess water and the chaff that has accumulated on top.
- Cover the jar with some kind of mesh. I use gauze that’s intended for bandage – a double layer, and secure the mesh on top with a rubber band or looped string.
- Invert the jar over a bowl, using a spoon on the bottom of the bowl to hold the jar at an angle so it drains well. Leave this for six to eight hours.
- Then, fill the jar, through the gauze, swish to rinse, drain, and invert again. Repeat this until you see tiny white sprouts emerging from MOST OF the seeds grown to about a quarter of an inch. This takes a couple of days.
- Then you are ready to put the drained, sprouted seeds into your food processor.
- Note: If your seeds are sprouted but you don’t feel like making the bread just then, put the jar of drained, covered seeds in the refrigerator and the sprouting will pretty much stop.
Where to get Ingredients in Merida
- Get wheatberries from Monique Duval. Email her in advance to arrange for picking them up. You can also get them at Casa de Campesinos downtown on Calle 54 between 65 and 67. They claim that the seeds are organic there, but they don’t sprout even half as well as the ones Monique sells.
- Casa de Campesinos has the best raisins and pecans in town, bar none. Or, you can get good ones in Costco.
- And while you’re downtown near the market, get the carrots there. They taste like carrots, not cardboard.
- Superama and Mega (Itzaes) have Alpura natural, unsweetened yoghurt.
- The rest of the ingredients are obvious.
General Notes
- I have also used peanut butter, plain non-sweet yoghurt, milk and other vegetables in this recipe with some success. Cheese, bananas, butter or oil, and citrus fruits have not worked well.
- You can make savory loaves by leaving out the fruit and honey, and using several kinds of vegetables (cauliflower, yucca, peppers, etc.) and herbs like garlic, cilantro and basil.
- If the fruit bread recipe is too healthy for you, a half (or whole!) cup of dark brown cane sugar would be fabulous, I’m sure.
- Note that dehydrated cranberries seem to always have added sugar.
* Optional
I recommend you try the yogurt and the fresh milk and creme at a shop on Calle 69 x 66 y 68 near the CAME bus station. It’s the only real yogurt I’ve had in Merida. I used to buy Alpura before finding this distributor for a local dairy. I don’t know the name of the shop it’s on the south side of the street in the middle of the block.
I’ll try it. Also, there is the yoghurt-like product they sell in the Lebanese stores, labne (pron. lab-nay) I believe it’s called. It’s a more solid consistency and is delicious. Nothing added.
Thanks! Sounds yummy. It’s my next bread endeavor. I’ve been making my own breads lately. I had forgotten how pleasant it is to mix, knead , shape and bake the dough to produce a fundamental food.
By the way, I’ve just rediscovered the miracles of using a pressure cooker. It takes a fraction of the usual cooking time.. It also promotes the consumption of healthy food for a hungry person who can’t wait to spend an hour’s preparation waiting for dinner!
By the way, labne is a middle eastern yogurt, sometimes partially strained for a cheesy spread for pita.
In the days before the ready availability of Dannon I used to make my own yogurt by heating up milk to about 190 degrees F., cooling it to 125 and adding a glop of culture from the last batch or a starter. A labne culture glop mixed in would probably do well. Pour into a jar and close the the lid tightly, wrap in several towels and place in a warm place for about 24 hours. The overheating prevents souring. Cooling it to 125 prevents killing the culture (like yeast for bread). I love goat milk yogurt so that’s the kind I still mak. Also yummy. In fact, labne might be really tasty on manna bread!