Honey Grain Bread Recipe

I just thought I would share the recipe I came up with for the quinoa flour. I incorporated it into one of my other recipes I created a while back. It isn't a high percent of quinoa, but it sure does come through in the bread. This is not a gluten free recipe.

Honey Grain Bread

2 3/4 cups water (1/4 c. used to proof yeast)
1 T. Salt
5 T. Butter or Olive Oil
5 T. Honey (use 1 T. in proofing yeast)
3 cups Bread Flour
1 cup Quinoa Flour
1 cup Flax Flour
2 1/2 cups White Whole Wheat Flour
1 1/3 cups Quick Cook Oats
5 t. yeast
2 T. vital gluten

Set to ferment over night or longer
2 1/2 c. water
2 1/2 c. white whole wheat flour
2 c. bread flour

I proofed my yeast in 1/4 c. warm water, 1 T. honey, 5 t. yeast.

I proof the yeast while I am adding the other ingredients to my mixer bowl that has the fermented flour in it. Sometimes depending on the amount of moisture in the air I have had to add an extra 1/4 c. of flour.

I set my mixer to mix for 12 minutes, but keep an eye on it. I have noticed that when I have let my fermented flours go for longer then 12 hours or so then it takes a lot less mixing to work the gluten up.

Once the dough has been mixed and is looking smooth and stretchy I like to scrape it out of the mixer bowl and kneed if for a little bit to see how it feels. Even though I enjoy my mixer I still like to kneed the dough. It is a great way to releave stress. Anyways, I set it aside now in a greased bowl and cover and let rise for 2.5 to 3 hours, until it doubles in size. I have been told I should let it rise twice before shaping it and placing on a baking pan or in a bread pan, but so far I have only done a single rise before placing in the pans. Then I slit the tops with a razor blade and let rise covered for 1 hr. (Next time I am going to try a little longer rise in the pans and also try a double rise before shaping.

I had put them in a cold oven and turned the oven to 400 degrees for 10 minutes, turned it down to 350 degrees after that and let bake an additional 25 minutes. They did not get a spring in the oven at all so I think I will put them in a warmed oven next time because that is how I normal do it, but wanted to try something different this time.

The bread was not heavy at all and has a delightful nutty flavor and when toasted it melts in the mouth and has a great crunch to it. We have not been able to keep the bread very long as it is gobbled up long before I usually make my next batch of bread. I might double this recipe for 4 loaves instead, but I do enjoy baking.

A few things I want to try with this next time as well is getting a stone for the oven and doing artisan loaves with it again. This might sound strange, but the artisan loaves had much more flavor then the loaves in the pan.