Quinoa Bread



Yummy Quinoa Baguettes!

Hubby: "What's for dinner tomorrow night, sweetie?"

Me: "I dunno, I didn't make up a menu."
That's when I remembered the quinoa I just purchased, and the Smart Bacon (soy) that I had in the freezer.

Luckily, it's easy to whip up some HB5 quinoa dough one night, and bake baguettes tomorrow. I had seen photos of yummy quinoa baguettes made by our HB5 group leader Michelle, of Big Black Dogs. The baguettes could make some great "BLT" sandwiches. And that's just what I made--the dough was mixed and was rising within just a few minutes.

There weren't enough hours for the dough to rise on the counter before bedtime. Therefore, the dough went into the fridge after 1 1/2 hours. I took it out the next morning to come to room temperature and finish rising.

 The next day, the dough was somewhat stiff. While that made it easy to shape baguettes, I wondered if the raw quinoa had soaked up some of the liquid.

First baguette, and 2 pieces resting after gluten cloak.
Next time a raw grain is part of a recipe, I am considering keeping the dough wetter. After all, my maple oatmeal bread was very wet, and the oatmeal seemed to absorb some of the liquid overnight.

I used the letterfold technique found in the HB5 book, and they came out nice. I had 2 baguettes that were 11oz. each, and a smaller one of 7 oz. each.

The fresh quinoa baguettes made wonderful vegetarian "BLT" sandwiches. 


Now, here's my "while the oven is still hot" recipe. I'm starting to test out holiday gift recipes, and this caught my eye.  A similar recipe came in the King Arthur catalog, but I've adjustment the amounts and ingredients slightly:

Pecan, Chocolate and Caramel candies

(adapted from King Arthur Flour recipe)

 1 ounce pecans

6 caramel candies

16 Dark Cocoa Candy Melts (by Wilton) 

    or other 1" - 1 1/2" bittersweet chocolate disk

sea salt to garnish each candy (if desired)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Unwrap caramels, place on a baking sheet and platter, and put them in a warm area to soften.

Chop pecans; you may need to chop more than 1 ounce in case you get crumbs. Toast chopped pecans. When pecans are toasted, place them into 16 piles (about 1/4oz./2tsp each) of pecans on a parchment-lined or lightly greased baking sheet.

Take caramel cubes and use your fingers to flatten them into disks the size of a half silver dollar. Place them on top of pecans. Heat in the oven for 2 to 3 minutes, until the caramel softens and begins to smell. Remove from oven. Top each cluster with a Candy Melt.

Once the chocolate has softened, top each candy with a few flakes of sea salt (if you like sweet and salty combo). Allow the caramel and chocolate to cool and set before removing candies from the pan.

Makes 16 candies

The candies tasted good.  Next time, however, I might make them in a mini muffin pan to improve the shape.

This bread is one of the breads from the "Healthy Breads in 5 Minutes a Day" book.
The HBinFive Baking Group, started by Michelle of Big Black Dogs, is baking through all of the breads in this book.  To see what my HB5 baking buddies have made recently, check out Big Black Dogs

Thanks for stopping by to visit! Come back soon, I'll be baking again often. I hope you will leave a comment below. I read every comment, and really appreciate your feedback. 

Judy