August 16, 2015 - 12:26pm
Need help with Bread Recipe
Hello, So I have a request of you guys and hope you can help me out. I need a bread recipe with no salt, no sugar, needs to be whole wheat and PACKED with vegetables. The reason will be kind of odd for this forum. I am dealing with a sick parrot that will not eat. She seems to like bread and parrots need vegetables not seeds (people are often misinformed on this point). So, I need to figure out a way to pack pulverized frozen mixed vegetables, into mush or tiny, tiny pieces into whole wheat bread.
I have tried this myself and come up with quite mushy bread. Can you guys help me? I am no bread expert. I would really appreciate any help. Thank You.
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Sweet potato flour?
Zucchini bread? With the above Sweet potato flour as part of the mix?
http://www.cooks.com/recipe/c64gv3hw/zucchini-bread-sugar-free.html
I would also consider brewers yeast as an add in. Lots of vitamins and minerals.
P.S. A google showed lots of hits, like this:
http://www.parrothouse.com/recipes.html
Hi yes, I have made "birdie bread" before but it tends to be more thick and mushy. She won't eat it as much as a slice of store bought 100% whole wheat bread, I suppose it is the springiness of it. I don't have access to sweet potato flour only sweet potatoes. I didn't mention it originally, but I think that store bought "springiness" may be a huge factor in her liking oit better. Any help still appreciated. Thank You
You don't say where you are, but Sweet potato flour is available from Amazon, so I figured you had a good chance of being able to order it.
A yeasted pumpkin bread. You could omit the spices, salt, and sugar and then increase the proportion of wholegrain flour(s). For variety sake, sweet potatoes or some winter squashes (butternut, Hubbard) could be substituted for the pumpkin. So could beets, parsnips, carrots, and other vegetables. I suppose just about anything that could be pureed would work, so long as bird is agreeable.
Having no idea what a parrot's daily intake is, maybe it would be good to make the bread in smaller pans. By making different batches with different vegetables and freezing them, the bird could have some variety from day to day or week to week.
Paul
@PMcCool, Can I use half whole wheat flour and half white for the yeasted Pumpkin bread recipe? Would it still come out fluffy and springy? Thanks
But no, I don't think it will be fluffy and springy like the store-bought bread. Two ideas that have been mentioned on TFL previously for improving the tenderness and airiness of breads with wholewheat flour are the tang zhong method that involves pre-gelatinizing a small part of the flour (not nearly so hard as that sounds) and extended kneading, as in more than 20 minutes.
You can use the Search tool at the upper right-hand corner of the page to look up more about tang zhong. Similarly, a search for the terms txfarmer and fluffy will take you to txfarmer's posts about how she achieved a light and fluffy wholegrain bread.
Paul
Hi Foodie
I keep parrots and finches here in Australia, you did not say what sickness is afflicting your bird or the breed of parrot, just that the parrot has a liking for commercial bread.
If you need to make a bread for the parrot as its main food source then i would certainly consider adding sprouted grains along with any number of diced veg, it may not be loaf that we humans are going to necessarily be queuing up for another slice of especially with the omission of salt, i never add sugar unless its going to be a sweet dough anyway.
If the bird has a liking for the store bought bread then that will of course have salt in it, are you leaving it out for the perceived health aspect, because salt in a dough does more than just give the bread a better flavour!
So the dough, if you require some volume then i would suggest 50% wholewheat with 50% bakers flour so a workable dough
Flour (50-50) 500g (( 1% = 5g ))
salt 5g ( i'd tend to still use some lets say half the usual so 1% that would be 5 g)
yeast 10g ( 2% this will give a bulk fermentation time of between 1 and 2 hours)
DICED VEG 100g what ever you have really and what the bird will eat, as much as the dough will carry, you can also add soaked seed (24 hrs) or sprouted grains and beans which will take a few days to pre prepare)
oil vegatable 10ml (sunflower olive any good quality veg oil)
water 325ml (equates to 65% hydration you will need to + or - depending on how you can handle and the absorption of the flour.
TOTAL DOUGH 950g
I would suggest that this is placed in a pan to bake as it will give more support to the dough so likely to achieve more lift. you could liquidise the veg into a puree and add to the water of the dough, but the parrot may well enjoy picking out the pieces of veg, if it picks them out and doesnt east them but will eat the bread then i would do the pulverising but you may end up with some very strange coloured breads.
I would love to see some pictures of the bird and any resulting bread, i am tempted to make this dough myself, i can always offer it to my parrots as they are now approaching their breeding season, (Watch this space)
kind regards Derek
My parrots loved fruits too since this was part of their normal diet - thankfully I outlived them all too!. I would consider putting in some re-hydrated dried fruits like raisins, cranberries, papaya, mango and others.
Hope your bird gets well - they are difficult but at least you can teach them to talk in various languages
Raisins and other dried fruit are not considered edible by my two parrots…they seem appalled by the stickiness of it. Peanut butter sandwiches can be of interest however. How about adding garbanzo bean flour or millet flour to your bread. Hemp protein, whey, dried milk, and egg may also be helpful in your bread. Veggies and fruit are wonderful but seeds and legumes bring lots of protein and other nutrients to a bird's diet. "Normal diet" is not easy to define for captive parrots….mine love cheese which would not likely be part of any wild parrot's diet. Wild parrots will eat eggs from other birds' nests and insects. They are omnivorous. Your parrot may have developed a taste for some dough enhancer in the commercial bread….no one says birdie has to be logical about this stuff. If a particular commercial bread is all your bird will eat, by all means offer it. You can try to broaden your pet's culinary tastes once he is feeling better. One of my birds was fed seeds almost exclusively in its first home but over the past decade+ has learned to eat a variety of fresh foods. Good luck to you and your bird.