Cauliflower Soda Bread

My aversion to bread began a fair few months ago, after finally understanding the whole deal with how bad gluten and wheat is for digestion (for mine in particular - obviously everybody is different and has different tolerance levels when it comes to processing foods present with gluten).

Having been brought up following the traditional English rule of having sandwiches for lunch 90% of the time, I guess you could say that cutting bread out of my diet was a drastic decision - and yet one of the best decisions I've ever made. I no longer crave bread* or starchy products like pasta and spaghetti, and actually avoid them like the plague. When I do delve into a bread/pasta based meal, I feel physically dreadful afterwards - which just goes to show how much of a positive difference cutting gluten out of your diet can bring to your digestive system. (*The only exception being the chilli and parmesan soda bread at work, as I've mentioned before - deeelish)

Nevertheless, today I've entered no-Katie's-land and baked my very own bread! I'd have never thought that I'd bother with the rigmarole of baking bread from scratch when it's so easy just to pop to the shops or local bakery and buy some, yet this recipe was just calling my name, and it's been in the back of my head to make it for a good few weeks now. So I took the plunge, bought the cauliflower and parmesan (the only two 'unusual' ingredients, the rest were conveniently the kind of household products that we always have stocked up: brownie point 1!).

I found the recipe here, amongst tons of other amazing looking creations *blogger's envy* and it immediately intrigued me. Alas, chit-chat over, here is my version of Viviane's wonderful recipe.



Ingredients:

1 medium cauliflower, chopped into chunks
5 egg whites
1 whole egg
25g parmesan cheese + extra for topping
50g coconut flour
1 teaspoon Himalayan sea salt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon paprika powder (optional: can omit, or replace with garlic powder, chilli powder, etc)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
Pepper to season (optional)

Firstly, preheat your oven to gas mark 6/200C. Next, using a food processor, pulverise your cauliflower in sections (my food processor couldn't handle lots of it at one time). Transfer what should resemble cauliflower rice to a bowl, and using a sieve add your coconut flour, followed by the eggs, salt, lemon juice, bicarb of soda, paprika and a crunch or few of pepper.

Grate 25g parmesan cheese into the bowl, and mix well again until all ingredients are evenly blended. Line a baking loaf tin with parchment paper, nicely greased all over with coconut oil, and place the mixture into the tin, smoothing the top to avoid an ugly-looking loaf. Spinkle with a dusting of paprika/powder of choice, plus a pinch of salt and pepper, and some additional parmesan (because you can never go wrong with extra cheesiness).

Lower your oven heat to gas mark 5/190C and place the tin inside. Bake for ten minutes, then lower the temp to gas mark 4 or 180C and bake for another 50 minutes. Remove from oven and leave to cool on a wire rack. The smell is something akin to savoury, cheesey popcorn - not the usual farty cauliflower smell, I can assure you!



High in fibre, vitamin C, vitamin K, omega-3 fatty acids and manganese, cauliflower sure delivers a nutritional punch - along with the coconut flour (a low-carb, high-protein and fibre alternative to other flours, which is also an excellent source of lauric acid, maganese and vitamin C), plus a whole lotta protein* and vitamin D from the eggs, this bread is definitely well up there in the stakes for healthiest breads ever (*Viviane didn't title it Cauliflower Protein Bread for nothing, y'know...try not to feel full after this amount of protein!). The additional paprika/spices is also super for increasing the metabolism...so ultimately, just make this, okay?

One serving is 2 slices/one sixth of the loaf, and contains approximately 110 calories, 15g protein, 2.7g fat, 5.1g carbs (2.7g sugars) and 4.2g fibre. Yep, a bread recipe that contains three times more protein than carbs(!!!). I'm very pleased with the outcome - there's something oh so satisfying about baking homemade bread (I get the hype now, bit late on the uptake). Next test: toasting cauliflower bread, and topping with something delicious (You know what I'm thinking? A classic, homely lunch of beans on toast, being one of my ultimate Childhood comfort meals that I miss tremendously. Decision = made).