For long I had wanted to make home-made bread from Teff flour. Teff is considered the smallest grain in the world, and as small as it is, it is super healthy and full of iron and vitamins. Teff is mainly known in Ethiopian cuisine, where it is used for making the traditional Injera bread. It is gluten-free (although the following bread is not gluten-free unless you get gluten-free oatmeal) and has a slightly sour taste that you need to like.
This teff bread is one of the most special breads I have ever made. It is very easy to prepare, without yeast and there’s no long proofing times. It only requires some patience during baking. In the original recipe, the bread was baked in an iron pot, but I used a sealed large bread pan that produced an excellent result. The bread is tender with a slightly acidic taste – and is great toasted with a little butter and jam.
Oatmeal Teff Bread
Based on this recipe by Limor Laniado Tirosh with some changes.
For the
teff bread dough:
- 400 grams Teff flour
- 120 grams whole oats
- 50 grams sunflower seeds
- 20 grams dark brown sugar
- 2 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. salt
- 250 ml. milk
- 200 ml. water
- 200 ml. plain yogurt 1.5% fat
- 45 ml. olive oil
- 1 tsp. apple vinegar
Decoration:
- Pumpkin seeds
- Sunflower seeds
- Sesame
You will need:
- 1 sealed bread pan in the following sizes:
- Depth: 11 cm (length: 31.5 cm, width: 12 cm)
- Preheat the oven to 200c degrees and place the bread pan in the oven.
- In a large bowl, combine flour, oats, sunflower seeds, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a uniform mixture.
- In a pot, heat milk and water to a boiling point. Turn off the flame and add yogurt, oil and vinegar. It’s okay if a crystalline mixture is formed.
- Add the milk mixture into the dry ingredients and mix well until the dough is uniform and sticky.
- Carefully remove the hot pan from the oven and gently brush it with oil.
- Transfer the dough into the greased pan and carefully flatten it with a spoon.
- Brush the top of the bread with oil and sprinkle over the seeds.
- Cover the pan with the lid or with aluminum foil and bake for about 30 minutes at 200c degrees.
- Lower the oven temperature to 160c degrees and continue baking for another 45-50 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and let the bread cool off in the pan for 20 minutes.
- Remove from the pan and cool completely at room temperature.
- You can use any kind of grain that you like. I used a mixture of pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds.
- If desired, add some sesame seeds to the dough as well. The dough obtained is very soft and sticky and it is fine.
- Keep the bread well wrapped (I like to slice it too) in the freezer for up to a month. Before serving, toast it slightly.
- The liquid mixture looks “broken” before you add it to the dry ingredients and that’s fine. So according to the original recipe and so should be.