Quinoa bread with olive oil
I must say that this was one of the weirdest loaves of bread I have ever made.
I used organic quinoa grain I bought at Costco. Quinoa is a pretty cool grain. It is one of the oldest grains and a complete protein all on its own. It also has the full line up of essential fatty acids, not to mention fiber and iron. You can make quinoa salad or make it like rice and have it as a side dish. If you haven’t had a chance to try it, you should give it a go. It does have a different flavor, but you’ll probably like it.
Anyway back to this weird bread… it all started with my starter. I replenished it two days ago after it had been in the refrigerator for a little over a week. Everything seemed fine with it, I mean it rose up, looked spongy etc., but once in the bread it appeared to have no rising power whatsoever. I made the dough and about an hour and a half later nothing happened, literally, nothing happened. I fear it has died.
Instead of dumping it out, I decided to re-mix it with 2t of regular yeast and a little extra water. Twenty minutes later, what I had was a loaf of bread exploding out of the pan. Of course it had some additional oven spring, so what I ended up with was a loaf of bread that stands quite tall. (I had a huge avocado sitting on the counter so I stood it up next to it).
The crust on this bread really is lovely.
Even though it was a weird loaf at the beginning it turned out to be quite wonderful. It has a very soft texture (even toasted) and a delicate flavor that oddly enough, is not overly quinoa as I thought might happen.
The kids ate about three pieces each for lunch and I had at least that many. I will definitely make this again. This is crowned 5th generation sourdough because it has yeast and egg.
Zee recipe:
1/2c of dry quinoa grain
3c of flour (I used 1c of quinoa flour, 1c of sorghum and 1c of potato starch)
1c of starter (damn you!)
1t of salt
2T whole cane sugar (you can use regular sugar it’s just what I had at the front of the shelf)
3t xanthan gum
2t yeast
2c of water
1/4c of egg white (about one large I think)
Mix all the ingredients together and let it proof in a 9×5 loaf pan prepped with spray oil and dusted with cornmeal. Drizzle a fair amount of olive oil over the top of the bread. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Let the bread rise until almost to the top of the pan and then bake, covered with foil for 10 minutes. Remove foil and let it bake another 35 minutes or so. Immediately remove from pan and cool on a rack.
~Sarah
P.S. Happy New Year!
