Sunflower Bread made nut free, grain free, sugar free, yeast free, gluten free and low carb!!
What's in this bread if it's made without flours, almonds or doesn't even use yeast you ask? Sunflowers dominate here! You've probably seen low carb or paleo breads made with almond flour right? My goal here wasn't for the purpose of a paleo recipe, but a nut free version that I could enjoy without the chance of almond flour dust entering into my home since my youngest has tree nut allergies. I wanted a low carb, gluten free bread that I could enjoy every so often with an egg, that was it.
I browsed the internet looking at all the almond flour bread recipes, but wasn't impressed with anything as most had sugar of some sort involved. My first version was a good attempt using some protein powder to replace flour but to be honest was quite bland. I also used some baking soda in that first recipe and discovered that sunflowers and baking soda will cause a chemical reaction and your bread will turn green. Didn't taste bad, but the green is a turn off don't you think? I decided to skip the baking soda, replace it with baking powder and use my favorite flaxseed meal and see how it worked here with the sunflowers and boy am I glad I experimented!
It's a tasty bread perfect for toasting but if you're looking for sandwich bread material this wouldn't hit the mark. For me, I enjoy it with a poached egg. It' is higher in fat than most breads due to the high volume of sunflowers but when you can't use almond flour in a recipe this is really the next best thing! The fat of course is a healthy fat, mostly unsaturated, from the sunflowers and will keep you satiated and your blood sugar won't spike after enjoying this delightful bread for breakfast. Raw unsalted sunflowers have a good amount of protein, fiber and iron and contain no cholesterol or sodium. Also very high in vitamin E which is a potent antioxidant!
A little butter and yummo! Top with a poached egg and enjoy! Or make a hearty salad, toast it up and use it as croutons!
Brenda's Notes:
- Sunbutter is nothing more than sunflower seed spread, just like the texture of peanut butter. Made from sunflowers and you can often find it without any added sugars but be careful and read the label on the back.
- If no allergies to peanut butter, you could also sub peanut butter with the sunflowers, I bet it would be equally as delicious!
- DO NOT USE salted, roasted sunflowers! I did in my first attempt and the result was a dense, oily salty bread. You can find unsalted raw sunflowers in the bulk section of a health food market.
- If you choose to keep it frozen, after it's been cooled, slice then seal in a ziplock freezer bag for up to a month.
Grain Free Nut Free Sunflower Bread {Sugar &Gluten Free}
Ingredients
- ½ cup ground flaxseed
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 cups sunflower seeds plus 2 tablespoons
- ½ cup sunflower seed butter
- 4 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
- Whisk flaxseed, baking powder and salt together.
- In a food processor, process 2 cups sunflower seeds until resembles flour. (Save 2 tbsp. unground for topping).
- In a stand mixer beat sunbutter then add one egg at a time until incorporated. Slowly pour in the flaxseed mixture into the stand mixer.
- Add the ground sunflowers, vanilla and cinnamon and beat until smooth.
- Place parchment paper into an 9 by 5 loaf pan and spray with nonstick cooking spray or grease pan.
- Pour batter into loaf pan.
- Sprinkle with remaining 2 tablespoons sunflower seeds.
- Bake 40 minutes and allow to cool.
- Remove onto a cutting board and once cooled slice into 12 slices.
- Keep refrigerated or frozen to extend length of freshness, up to a week.
Notes
Nutrition
About Brenda
Brenda Bennett is a certified Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, certified Sugar Detox Coach, certified Keto Coach and certified Life Coach. She has been Sugar Free & Refined carb free for 17 years and has written 2 cookbooks, Sugar-Free Mom, and Naturally Keto and her 3rd book The 30-Day Sugar Elimination Diet, is a four part program to help you detox from sugar, eliminate cravings, balance blood sugar and lose weight all while eating a delicious, nutrient dense whole foods. Meal plan offers two tracks to follow, low carb or keto. She is the founder of the Sugar Free Fresh Start course and Sugar Free Tribe weight loss membership. Learn more.
Lu
brilliant recipe: thank-you! Question please: would it work to freeze dough (even just for a week or 2), or would dough be ok in fridge for a week? I live alone (know i could freeze the bread, but prefer fresh).
I used tahini, as I didn't have sunbutter, had to add some water, and skipped cinnamon and vanilla as wanted savory. just learning to cook (at age 61, ha): doing keto so need to. Never made bread before: made this twice (made 1/2 batches): surprised it worked: kudos to you that even I had success with your recipe: very yummy. Will try some more of your recipes: a million thanks
Brenda
Yes you can cook, then cool it then I'd slice pieces and separate between pieces of parchment then place in a ziplock bag. That way you can remove pieces one at a time from the freezer.
Lu
Many thanks Brenda: do you think it would work to freeze the dough? (ie before cooked)
Corey Shdaimah
I have sunflower flour already- do you know about how much you end up when you process the sunflower seeds to make the sunflower flour? I'd love to try this!
Brenda
This recipe was published back in 2014, but it needs some updates with pictures and when I do, I will update how much it is once ground. My guess right now would be about 1 and 3/4 cup ground.
Bernadette Schell
I just seen this recipe and wanted to know if you can use dairy butter instead of the sunflower butter?
Brenda
No unfortunately dairy butter will not swap with sunflower butter. You need another type of seed or nut butter to swap.
Cristina
Hello.
Thank you for the recipe. Can I use the regular milk butter instead sunflower seed butter?
Brenda
No the dairy butter is pure fat and not the same consistency as the seed butter, you could change out the seed butter for a nut butter.
Karin
Thank you for this recipe. I made a loaf at the weekend and it was wonderful; I am now experimenting with it! I've used olive oil instead of sun butter and this was also successful. Very grateful for finding this site.
Gilli
I did need to add some coconut oil to the fresh ground sun butter to get it to a texture like the bought stuff.
Gilli
This is gorgeous - served with honey and raw butter my husband can't get enough of it. Off to make some more. Really handy to have a juicer that makes the sunflowerseed butter.
ME
I made this today. I only had three eggs, so I used a mix of chia/flax/psyllium husk & water to replace the fourth egg.. The recipe definitely needed additional liquid, and I don't think it was because I subbed one egg out. I ended up adding about 3/4 cup of coconut milk & water. I like it, but unfortunately my kids (4 and 1.5) don't. My husband said it's okay. We eat homemade sunbutter regularly, so I am a little surprised they didn't enjoy it. Oh well! (We all love your no bake cocoa quinoa bars though!)
Cheryl
You say to preheat the oven to 300 degrees. I assume that is Fahrenheit (F). Is that correct? Mine did not turn out as expected. Should the oven temperature be higher than 300F?
Brenda
yes that was F. What happened?
Cheryl
Mine hardly raised. I had more of a thick dough than anything. I certainly did not have a "pourable" batter. I made it a second time, with similar results. Perhaps I need to add some liquid as another reviewer indicated.
Christine
Hi Brenda,
This recipe looks great! I love that it has most everyday things you would already have in your kitchen!!
Question: I was wondering if you have ever used this recipe to make muffins? I need to bring a low sugar, gluten-free bread option for my nieces to have during our Easter Dinner, and when I saw this recipe I immediately thought I could potentially make it into muffins and bring. I'm sure they would love it!
Let me know what you think. Thank you!! 🙂
Brenda
I've not tried it in a muffin but feel it would need something else to make it work, like savory or sweet, as a bread it's fantastic but when I think muffin this wouldn't be it.
Alex
Wow, that looks delicious! I need to try this!
One question: Can you use ground oats in place of the ground sunflower seeds and make an oat bread using this recipe?
Brenda
Not quite sure on how the texture would work but it's worth a shot, let me know, may be a lot more dense.
Anna
I thought you would like this recipe for your sons as it is sugar free, gluten free and nut free. My sister is a chef and food blogger and this is one of her recipes.
http://eatpurefood.ca/2014/02/28/gluten-free-flax-bread/
Amanda
Is there any way to make a grain free EGG free bread???? Boys with allergies here...
Brenda
You may have some luck making a flax egg or chia seed egg. Have you tried flax eggs in baked goods?
Debbie
I'd like to know if anyone tried to make this using flax egg or chia seed egg. I'm allergic to eggs.
monique
Is sunbutter sun flower seed butter?
Brenda
yes
monique
Hi do you think they can be done in mini buns
Brenda
I do, small mini loaves.
Cari
Hi Brenda this looks like a winner to me. I am going to make my first attempt at gluten free bread. I do see that in your notes under DO NOT USE, you mention finding unsalted raw almonds....did you mean sunflowers? or is this in case we want to try it with almond meal.
Brenda
Oh my thank YOU for catching that, slip up on my part!