Quinoa Honey Bread

This post was updated on February 16, 2009 – See below.

For the first time, I went to the great food dividing the other day, for the twice yearly non-perishable order. It was exciting to get my stuff. I found out about the group close to order time, so unfortunately, didn’t get to browse the order list as much as I would have liked. I saw a lot of stuff that other people got that made me think, “oh, I wish I ordered that“.

One of the items I did order was a big bag of quinoa (KEEN-wah). It is the ancient grain of the Incas, a super food, a complete protein, and so on and so forth. Last night I made a quinao pilaf type dish that was rather tasty and today I tried it out in bread. As we were eating it hot from the oven, Zachary complimented it and Gabriel agreed. It was yummy. Here’s my recipe. Measurements are all approximate.

2 cups quinoa, cooked
1 cup rolled oats, cooked (I had some leftover from breakfast.)
4 cups warm water
2 tbsp. salt
2 tbsp. active dry yeast
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup coconut oil (or other oil)
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
white flour, approx. 5 cups
whole wheat flour, approx. 5 cups

Sorry, no instructions. If you don’t know how to make bread I’m sure there are some helpful websites out there that describe it in great detail.

Edit: February 16, 2009

I have received some negative feedback (see comments) for being too vague and uncaring in posting this recipe.  I had no intention of it being a step-by-step how-to on making bread and at the time –  with husband living 600 km away – I had a screaming five month old baby, not to mention his three older brothers.  I just wanted to quickly record it somewhere (so I would remember) and so that if any of my friends or family, who I knew would be quite capable at figuring out how to make it (or would politely ask me for more details), would be able to try it as well.  Somehow, between then and now, this post has become the top search result on Google for “quinoa bread”.  So, to avoid hurting the feelings of any others who would like to try this bread, I’ll try to add enough details and also to share some alterations I’ve made.  

Updated Quinoa Honey Bread Recipe

2 cups quinoa, cook according to directions 
1 cup rolled oats (or quick oats), cooked (I had some leftover from breakfast.)
6 cups warm water
2 tbsp. salt
2 tbsp. active dry yeast
1/3 cup honey

Combine these ingredients and let sit for 10 minutes.

Stir in:
1/3 cup coconut oil (or other oil)
OR substitute 1/3 cup ground flax seed for oil (thanks, Robyn, for this tip)
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
white flour, approx. 5 cups
whole wheat flour, approx. 5 cups

I apologize for not having more precise flour measurements, but I never measure flour into my bread.  Knead flour into bread until dough form a ball that springs back when depressed with a finger. 

The original recipe yielded 3 loaves.  This recipe will probably yield 4, but that, of course, depends on how big your loaves are.  The reason I don’t know how many loaves it makes yet is because I removed a portion of dough to knead to the springy consistency, while leaving the remainder much more moist.  This moist portion is stored in my cold room.  I have taken one loaf worth out so far to bake.  This will give you a much crispier crust and a bit of a sourdough “tang” to the flavour.  For more information on making bread this way check out this and this.

If you make the bread the first way (kneading flour in until the dough springs back) you can bake it at 350° for 30 minutes.

If you make it the other way (stirring in enough dough to make a stiff mixture – but please read linked articles for more instruction!) you will have to bake it at 375° for 1 hour. 

If you are hesitant about how this will turn out I could suggest that you half the recipe and start with a smaller amount.  That way, if you aren’t happy with the results you won’t have to eat as much of it!  

Good luck!

To finish off, I will share this photo of the “No Knead” Quinoa Honey Bread that I recently baked. It’s yummy!