Imitation Prophet Bread

Prophet Bread

There's a little coffee shop near school that I like. I have taken a number of different friends there and they all seem to really enjoy it. The coffee is pretty expensive, so I don't go very often, but it is fantastic. However, it doesn't have much in the way of pastries. They have a few eccentric danishes and a couple of demi-baguettes with olives and figs. It's not really my cup of tea. However, one day I noticed that you can get toasted slices of brioche or 5 grain bread with butter, peanut butter, or fancy jam.

On the first morning I stayed at Egnatius' apartment, his kitchen was almost entirely devoid of food. I told him that we should go down to this coffee shop for breakfast. We each ordered slices of the "5 grain toast," his with butter and jam and mine with just butter. I rarely eat butter except a little bit on bagels, but I decided to try it. The toast came out as thick slices of white bread-- so white I think they might even have used bleached flour (or maybe there was just no whole wheat in it) peppered with millet, sun flour seeds, poppy seeds, flax seeds, and sesame seeds. The bread was delicious, especially with a tiny hint of butter and a delicious nonfat latte.

The last time we were there, I told Egnatius that I wanted to learn how to make the bread. After scouring over my bread books, I found a recipe called "Many-Seed Bread" in Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day. At first, I didn't know what the foreign round yellow seeds were in the bread from the coffee shop (Prophet Bread), but I eventually found, while going through recipes, that they were millet. I bought some bulk millet and went to work. The bread is delicious. Recipe to follow tomorrow.