Kira's Quinoa & Honey Bread

I'm going to make a lot of you jealous right now.

We've been making our own bread for about four years now.
When I say we, I mean that Kira does it most of the time and I fill in when necessary.(ie.  Morning Sickness)
It has become a part of our weekly routine.
Every once in a while we must buy a loaf from the store, but that is extremely rare.



Making your own bread is very rewarding.
You take control over a diet staple.
You take control over what goes into a food that many of us consume daily.
Bread, in general, has become notoriously low in nutrition.
The mills enrichen the product with chemical vitamins and minerals, but the core value of the grains has already been stripped away by processing.
Many of you may already know about the serious drawbacks associated with consuming wheat.
Making your own bread allows you to use whatever ingredients you deem most healthful.
That means experimenting with flours and other added ingredients such as seeds and nuts.

Our children love toast.  It's the one food that they will always eat.
It is so very important, then, to ensure that our bread is not junk food.
We focus on reducing the wheat content and raising the protein level.
Bread is tricky with no wheat, and so we continue to use it, albeit in moderation.
We use organic, unbleached bread flour, spelt flour, rye flour, teff flour, quinoa and quinoa flour, soy flour and a variety of seeds and seed meals to complement the loaves.  Therefore, we always have a variety of nutrition rich bread on hand.

Today, Kira will share her recipe for Quinoa Honey bread.
Bear in mind that bread making is a practiced art.  Small differences in preparation can have a wide range of results.  Variables include such things as water composition, home temperature and humidity, oven characteristics, differences in yeasts, and the list goes on.
You need to make bread to learn so don't allow yourself to be discouraged if you don't get the results you expect.

  I spent a week working with just one recipe and ended up with a different loaf each night.

If anyone is interested in a full online workshop, just let us know in a comment.  If there's is enough interest then we'll set one up.  And trust me, Kira's bread is worth it!

So, I bet you want me to stop talking and let this recipe go!  Ok.  Take it from here Kir!

Quinoa & Honey Bread

1 cup water

1 cup milk

1/4 cup honey

2 tbsp butter or lard

1 tbsp salt

1 1/2 cups cooked quinoa

2 1/2 cups spelt flour

2 cups unbleached bread flour

1~ Put honey and warm water (warmer than luke warm) into the mixing bowl and stir together. Then, add the yeast.  While the yeast is proofing warm the milk and butter on the stove top in pot until butter is melted. 

2~ To the mixing bowl add in the milk and butter, quinoa, spelt flour and salt turn on mixer and mix until blended. Once blended start adding the bread flour about one tablespoon at a time leaving the mixer on . Once the dough has formed onto the dough hook mix for five minutes.  

  

3~  Place dough into an oiled bowl, cover and let rise until double in size roughly 40 minutes depending on temperatures.

4~ Take dough out and cut into two pieces. Roll into rectangles and roll up and pinch closed. Place into greased bread pans.  Let rise until about double in size about 40 minutes give or take depending on temperatures. Before this rise is over, about 3/4 of the way through preheat the oven to 375 deg.F 

*Do not use oil to grease the pans. The bread will stick when you take the loaf out after baking.

Use either butter or lard.

5~ Bake for 40 minutes or until golden brown. Take out of oven. Here you can brush tops of loaves with melted butter for a soft crust or leave them and the crust will be crunchy and flake. take out of pans and cool on rack.

Enjoy!