We’ll Be Baking This Gut-Friendly Lemon Chia Bread for Breakfast on Repeat Until Further Notice

If you like lemon, then you're going to love the bright, zesty recipe in this week's episode of Alt-Baking Bootcamp. In the episode, baker and nutrition coach Sashah Handal demos how to make a delicious gut-healthy lemon chia bread recipe. Bonus: It's also gluten-free (but you wouldn't know it from the taste).

Two things that make these loaves so good for your gut: the gluten-free all-purpose flour and the chia seeds. "The combination of flours [called for] are already nice and high in fiber, and they're full of good carbohydrates," Handal says, explaining that the fiber-rich flours both boost your digestive system and help keep you energized. She uses Bob's Red Mill 1:1 Gluten-Free Baking Flour in the recipe, which is a blend of rice flours, potato starch, whole grain sorghum flour, and tapioca flour. "They have done all of the tedious work of finding out which ratios of which gluten-free flowers work best together," Handal says. And because it already contains xanthan gum—which acts as a binder for gluten-free flours—all you have to do is measure and add to your recipe. That's it: Zero guesswork, experimentation, or fussy ingredients required.

But the nutritional value of this dreamy loaf recipe doesn't stop there. "The benefits of chia seeds go on and on and on," Handal says. For starters, they're packed with longevity-boosting omega-3s, along with protein and fiber. Chia seeds bring important textural components to the table, too; they add both a slight crunch to the bread as well as help bind the wet and dry ingredients in the dough together. "Chia seeds are so cool. They can absorb nine times their weight," Handal adds. "So whenever you get a chia seed pudding or you put it in your smoothie, it just becomes like this additional filler in the best way possible."

Ready to bake? Press play on the video to get the full recipe, and follow along below.

Gut-healthy, gluten-free lemon chia bread recipe

Ingredients

For the loaf:
1 3/4 cup 1:1 gluten-free flour, sifted
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
3 lemons, zested
1 cup cane sugar
1/3 cup cashew yogurt
1/3 cup oat milk
3 Tbsp lemon juice
3 eggs
2/3 cup olive oil
2-3 tbsp chia seeds

For the glaze:
2 Tbsp lemon juice
3/4 cup powdered sugar, sifted

1. Begin by preheating your oven to 350°F. Line an 8-inch loaf pan with parchment paper and coat with neutral oil or cooking spray.

2. Combine the gluten-free flour, baking powder, baking soda, and sea salt in a medium mixing bowl and sift well.

3. In a separate bowl, combine the lemon zest and sugar together until it feels like wet sand. Add yogurt, milk, lemon juice, and eggs to the sugar mixture and whisk well. Finally, stir in the olive oil and chia seeds, and gently combine the wet and dry ingredients together.

5. Bake for about one hour, or until the center is fully set.

6. Meanwhile, prepare the glaze by whisking together the remaining lemon juice and the sifted powdered sugar until a thick glaze forms.

7. Remove the loaf from the oven and let it cool on a baking rack. Drizzle the glaze over your loaf while still warm and allow your loaf to cool completely before slicing.

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