Carrot Cashew Blender Bread (Grain Free)

Continuing the theme of deconstructing recipes, this post aims to do three things:

• Share a new (whole food, grain free, Paleo, GAPS, etc) bread recipe
• Share a new way of mixing up the batter
• Help you design your own grain free bread.

I’ve preciously posted two grain free bread recipes. First was Grain free, dairy free Pumpkin & Cashew Bread

Then there was Carrot Almond bread

This one is Carrot and Cashew, so a variation on both. I might not even have bothered to post it, except that I used a new process. The food processor was in the dish washer, which I’d just turned on, and I wanted to make something for lunch. So I thought I’d try the blender. It worked really well, probably even better then the food processor. The cashews came out more finely blended. The carrots were much finer as well.

So here’s what went into the blender:

• 6 eggs
• 1 cup milk kefir (you could also use yoghurt, or extra carrot)
• 1 very large carrot, grated (I was aiming for a cup, but it ended up closer to 2 and was still fine)
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 heaped baking soda
• 500gm cashews

I blended everything up in one go, but next time will blend everything except the cashews first, then add those. Just to make sure everything is well mixed.

Into a loaf tin lined with baking paper, and into a preheated oven at 150C (300F) for an hour. It also seemed to cook quicker, usually it takes more like an hour and 20 minutes. Or maybe I just accidentally had the oven slightly hotter.

We ate some of it straight away, so there’s not much left for a photo.

Most of my clients are doing GAPS or similar diets, so we're aiming for breads that are based on nuts or seeds, rather than starches. Yes, I know cashews aren’t botanically nuts but functionally they can be used the same.

So let’s look at what the commonalities are for making bread that doesn’t have grains, or any starchy flours, in it.

EGGS
• Without gluten or gums, we need something to hold the bread together, so the eggs are very important, and I use 6 for each loaf. I haven’t done much experimenting with egg substitutes, so am not going to recommend any here. But maybe @stephmckenzie will do some experimenting and let us know how it goes??

“FLOUR”
• For cashew bread, I use 500gms, as weighing is a more accurate way to measure loose nuts. That comes to about 3 cups, before grinding. If you wanted to use other nuts, try a similar quantity.

• If I’m using ground almonds, the weight is less (about 255 gms) but the quantity is about the same (just under 3 cups).
• A standard coconut flour loaf would use only ¾ cup flour. Coconut flour is much more absorbent than other flours and ¾ cup would be equivalent to about 1.5 cups of a starchy flour and probably more than that of a nut flour. Most recipes don’t use as much moisture as this Mix-and-Match guide, so if you wanted to use all coconut flour, start at 1 cup, let sit to absorb, then add more if needed.
• I find coconut flour a bit dry and usually combine it with almond flour – maybe 2 cups almond flour and ½ cup coconut flour.

SOMETHING MOIST
• This would be about 2 cups of something like yogurt or kefir, grated vegetables, cooked vegetables. Sometimes I might use some melted butter or coconut oil as part of this. So combos that can work:
• 1 cup yogurt or kefir PLUS 1 to 1.5 cups of grated carrot or zucchini
• 1 cup yogurt or kefir PLUS 1 cup cooked pumpkin
• 2 cups yoghurt or kefir
• 2 cups cooked pumpkin
• 2 cups grated carrot or zucchini and 25 gm melted butter or coconut oil (if you like to see the flecks of vegetable, add after everything else has been blended, if you’re doing the blender process)
• If you want a sweet bread, 2 cups mashed banana or apple puree
• Other veges, other fruits, other moist ingredients, you get the idea…

OTHER IMPORTANT BITS:
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• A rising agent – I usually use 1 to 1.5 teaspoons baking soda and a Tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. If using kefir in the recipe, you probably won’t need the vinegar. Or you could use baking powder, probably 1.2 to 2 teaspoons, and you won’t need the vinegar
• Any extra flavourings you fancy. I usually don’t add anything else, as I want a neutral bread, but you could add herbs or spices. Or some dried fruit for a fruit loaf.

METHOD:
• If you’re using a food processor and whole nuts, grind the nuts first, then add the rest.
• If using a blender and whole nuts, mix everything else, then add the nuts. Only use the blender method if its a wettish mix (eg 2 cups baked pumpkin is too dry) and it's a high speed blender
• If using a pre-ground flour, mix your wet ingredients first, then the dry ingredients.

COOKING:
Coconut flour can be cooked hotter, but for nut flours, I usually go for 150C (300F) or just over. If you’ve started with whole nuts and used a food processor, the mixture might be quite wet, and may take up to 1.25 or 1.5 hours. Otherwise, the mixture should be reasonably thick, and you can start checking at about 55 minutes.