blackout Bread, Dewsbury Style Lean, high fibre, high protein, very low fat. This is the true Ezekiel-style survival bread. About 150 kcal per muffin.

Ezekiel Bread, Dewsbury Style

From the prophet's kitchen to my kitchen in Dewsbury.
I did not set out to make Ezekiel bread. I set out to use up a bag of soup mix.
But somewhere between soaking the pulses and pulling a tray of muffins out of the oven, I realised I had made something very close to what Ezekiel made. Just with a Yorkshire accent.

What Ezekiel Made
In Ezekiel 4:9, God tells the prophet:
Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself.
That is the original recipe. Six ingredients. No yeast mentioned, no honey, no shortcuts. It was survival bread. Bread for a siege. Bread made to keep a man alive when nothing else was available.
Traditional Ezekiel bread today still follows that idea. The grains and pulses are sprouted, then ground, then baked. Sprouting makes them easier to digest, and mixing grains and legumes together gives you a complete protein. It is dense, nutty, filling, and it is not trying to be fluffy white bread. It is trying to keep you going.

What I Made
My version started with a bag of dried soup mix from the shop, not a storage jar of six separate grains. But look at what is in it:
My Dewsbury Stew Bread:300g dry soup mix, soaked 24 hours, weighed 913g after soaking
2 tablespoons dry veg mix
230g spelt flour

100g multi seeds for bread mixed in with the soup mix

2.5 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp honey
Baked in a muffin tin, 170C, 18 to 22 minutes
No yeast. No kneading. No waiting for a rise. Just soak, blitz, fold, bake.

The Comparison


Ezekiel Bread                                             My Dewsbury Mix

Grains and pulses
Wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, spelt

 
                                                                  Soup mix of barley, peas, lentils, millet plus spelt

Method

 
Sprouted, ground, yeast-risen
                                                                  Soaked, blitzed, baking powder risen

Liquid
Water
                                                                   Water from soaking, plus stew veg

Sweetness
None
                                                                   2 tbsp honey

Flavour
Nutty, plain
                                                                   Savoury, beef stock, stewed veg

Shape
Loaf
                                                                   Muffin tin portions

Bake
Long, slow loaf bake
                                                                   170C, 18 to 22 minutes

Keeps
3 to 4 days
                                                                   3 to 4 days.


What Is The Same

The heart of it is the same. Grains plus pulses. That is the secret in Ezekiel, and it is the secret in mine.
On their own, grains are missing something. Pulses are missing something else. Put them together, and they complete each other. You get a bread that actually fills you up, not a bread that leaves you hungry an hour later.

Both are dense. Both are honest. Both are bread that was made to sustain, not to impress.
And both are made from what you have in the cupboard. Ezekiel used what was in the jar. I used what was in the bag.

What Is Different

Ezekiel sprouted his grains. I soaked mine. Sprouting takes days and planning. Soaking takes a bowl and a night of patience. Mine is the shortcut version, but it gets you to the same place: softened pulses, easier to digest, ready to bake.

Ezekiel used plain water. I used stew veg. That is where Dewsbury comes in. I folded in a ladle of drained veg stew, about 200g. It gave the muffins a savoury depth you do not get from plain Ezekiel bread. It tasted like gravy and harvest had been baked into the crumb.

And Ezekiel made a loaf for a siege. I made muffins for portion control. Twelve little loaves, each about 112g, each one perfectly toasted with pâté or dipped in stew. Same idea, just in a muffin tin.

Why It Matters To Me

There is something holy about making bread from almost nothing.
Ezekiel was told to make bread in a time of scarcity. I made bread in a time when the cupboards looked a bit bare and the soup mix had been sitting there too long. Different centuries, same lesson: God provides in the jar, in the bag, in the ladle of leftover stew.
I did not sprout anything. I did not pray over the dough, although I should have. I just mixed what I had and put it in the oven. And it came out golden, firm, and good.
It tasted great warm. It tasted even better the next day, toasted, with the stew it came from.

The Ratios, For Anyone Who Wants To Try It
For every 100g of spelt flour, use 130g dry soup mix and 87g drained stew veg.
Or in one batch:300g dry soup mix, soaked to 913g
200g drained stew veg
230g spelt
That is 30: 20: 23. Simple enough to remember, even for me.
Bake at 170C. 30 minutes as a loaf, 18 to 22 minutes as muffins.

The Last Word

Ezekiel's bread kept a prophet alive in a siege. My bread kept me fed on a Wednesday night in Dewsbury, with pâté on top and stew on the side.
Different bread. Same God. Same provision.
If you have soup mix in the cupboard, you have Ezekiel bread waiting to happen. You just have to soak it.

Enhanced: 913g soup mix + 100g 7-seed mix + 100g dried veg mix + 40g honey, which is 2 tbsp
If you used a different amount of seeds or veg, the numbers scale up and down in the same proportions.

Per 100 g dry mix


Enhanced: + 7 Seed + Dried Veg + Honey

Calories
362 kcal

Protein
14.1g

Carbs
59.8g

Fibre
11.6g

Fat
2.1g
7.0g

Sugar
10.1g

Sodium
44mg


Per muffin, 12 muffins from the batch


Enhanced Muffin

Calories
232 kcal

Protein
9.1g

Carbs
38.4g

Fibre
7.5g

Fat
4.5g

Sugar
6.5g


What the extras actually do

7-seed mix, 100g:

This is where the big change comes from. It more than triples the fat, but it is good fat. Pumpkin, sunflower, linseed, sesame, chia and the rest bring magnesium, zinc, vitamin E, and omega-3 and omega-6. That is why the enhanced muffin jumps from 0.9g fat to 4.5g fat. It also adds about 2.6g extra protein per muffin, and it makes the bread far more filling. It is the difference between a bread that tides you over and a bread that keeps you going for hours.

Dried veg mix, 100g:

This adds very little fat, but it adds a lot of bulk, fibre, and micronutrients. Dried carrot, onion, leek, pea and tomato are concentrated, so you get much more vitamin A, vitamin C, potassium and natural sugars than you would from fresh veg by weight. That is why sugar goes from 4.6g to 10.1g per 100g even before the honey. It is not added sugar; it is concentrated veg sugar, but your body still counts it.

Honey, 40g:

Honey adds almost nothing except energy and flavour. 40g is 122 kcal and 33g sugar for the whole batch, about 10 kcal and 2.7g sugar per muffin. It helps the crust brown, and it softens the savoury flavour, but nutritionally it is the weakest part of the mix. For a health angle, honey is the one ingredient you could drop and barely miss.

Enhanced mix: high fibre and higher protein, but now with healthy fats and a lot more micronutrients. About 232 kcal per muffin. Much more complete as a meal on its own.
In short: soup mix + spelt on its own is good survival bread. Soup mix + seeds + dried veg + honey is a complete meal bread.