ETA: If you don’t have any starter, simply replace it with 1/2 cup of warm milk, about 1/3 cups more AP flour, 1 tsp of sugar and 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast in the quinoa bread recipe below. Proof the yeast with the warm milk into which the sugar has been dissolved and add it to the dough at the same point that you would have added the starter.
On a recent trip to Bulk Barn I picked up some tri-colour quinoa and riffing on my previous honey whole wheat sourdough bread experiments, I made a lovely sandwich loaf with some soaked quinoa.
Tri-Colour Quinoa Honey Whole Wheat Sourdough Loaf
Tri-Colour Quinoa Honey Whole Wheat Sourdough Loaf – 860 grams of dough, makes one 9″ by 5 1/4″ loaf
1/4 cup quinoa, rinsed 3 times and soaked overnight at room temp in fresh water**
2 1/4 cup all purpose flour, divided
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/4 tsp ground garlic powder (optional)
3/4 cup active sourdough starter
1/2 cup warm milk
1 large egg, room temperature, slightly beaten
** You may find that some of your quinoa has sprouted the next morning.
In a large bowl, combine 1 cup of the AP flour, the WW flour and the salt, stir well.
Add the quinoa, honey, olive oil, garlic powder (if used), starter, milk and egg and beat well with a large wooden spoon until you have a smooth batter. Gradually stir in the rest of the all purpose flour, 1/4 cup at a time, until the dough forms a ball around the spoon.
Turn out the dough onto a floured working surface and gradually knead in the rest of the flour until you have a soft but not sticky dough. Knead for 5 minutes, let rest for 5 minutes under a bowl and then knead for another 5 minutes.
Form the dough into a ball, place into a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a sheet of saran wrap or a damp towel and place in a warm place until doubled. (This took about 1 hr 45 min in my oven with the light turned on.)
Shape the dough and place into an oiled 9 by 5 1/4 inch loaf pan. Cover again with saran wrap or the towel and let rise until doubled, another 1 1/2 – 2 hrs.
Preheat the oven to 375 deg F and bake the loaf for 25-30 minutes until well browned and the bottom is firm and sounds hollow when knocked. You may need to cover with a sheet of aluminum foil if it gets too brown before it’s finished baking.
Turn out and let cool on rack. Don’t cut until it’s cooled to room temperature.
Recently, I had a craving for English muffins and this weekend I tried a new recipe I found on line, which used sourdough starter. It ended up being a bit fiddly to execute and the finished muffins were much bigger than I liked. I split and toasted the muffins and ate them with butter, honey and peanut butter. I even had a hearty ham and peanut butter sandwich. Tasty, but not remarkable.
Sourdough English Muffins with honey
Cooking is Fun ... Really!! 
I love quinoa, I’ve never had it in bread.
It’s my poor attempt at a ‘seedy’ bread. Since I have a couple of cups left, I’d be interested in how you cook it.
I usually just put it in the microwave oven or on a stove top, one part quinoa to two parts water. In the microwave oven it cooks for 10 minutes then two minutes resting. On the stove top, once it’s absorbed the water, you’ll get a feel for the texture. You need to wash it first too like rice.
My FB group members mentioned the saponin coating on quinoa which needs to be rinsed off or it will be bitter. Do you ever cook the quinoa in broth or do you always just use water? I ran across a breakfast recipe which uses cooked quinoa and cooks it with milk, sugar and dried cranberries, orange zest and crushed pecans. It sounded very tasty.
My favourite way to cook it is beneath a piece of chicken thigh or chicken Maryland in a hot oven. The quinoa soaks up all the chicken juices and it tastes better than just water.
Yes, I have used stock which does help impart more flavour.
Of course, you can’t turn leftover quinoa into breakfast porridge if you cook it in broth. Or maybe you can. Sort of like a congee for breakfast. 🙂
Unless you enjoy savoury quinoa for breakfast 😃
Quinoa in bread – now that’s a new one. 🙂 I’m not a fan of using quinoa as a grain for budda bowl and such, but I can now see how well it works in bread. Your bread is perfect!
Thank you for the kind remark.
I’ve never heard of ‘budda bowl’ but when I ran across tubs of the stuff at the bulk store chain, Bulk Barn, on the weekend, for $4-5 a pound depending on the colour (the plain was the cheap one but I went for the pricier tri-colour) I thought I’d give it a try. It’s my solution for the multi-grain loaves they’re baking on my SD FB groups. 🙂
I found a nice assortment of those bowls here. Something to think about.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/michelleno/14-buddha-bowl-recipes-that-will-satisfy-every-craving?utm_term=.fhQdJOGra#.mceDaRVL5
What fabulously authentic-looking English muffins! Excellent job. The nooks and crannies look wonderful, perfect little spots for the butter to pool in. That loaf looks great, your quinoa would have had to be super fresh to sprout like that, lucky you! I bet that bread was delicious!
Thank you, though, to be honest, I was disappointed in the English muffins. The bread though was a nice surprise, and delicious. 🙂
I love that some of the quinoa has sprouted – what a healthy bread. I have never made English muffins but that bread is definitely calling my name.
I had heard of baking bread with sprouted wheat grains but not with quinoa. It was very good. As far as the muffins go, an earlier version was much more successful in my opinion.
I love, love, love quinoa. I just love it’s flavor, I can’t even explain why. I can’t say I’ve ever baked with it though, which makes me all the more curious. The loaf looks fantastic, cheers for sharing this. It’s always fun coming across new challenges like this.
Would you be interested in sharing recipes with our community of passionate foodies? We’re always on the lookout for fun, new and delicious recipes like this one. You can find us right over here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/OnlyGoodEats and on Instagram @Creatorsdotco (where we share creations from the Good Eats community!)
Thank you for the comment and the invitation though I’ll have to pass on the latter.
Hi there! Thanks for responding. No worries at all.
Great bread! The bread bakes into a nice high loaf with a soft, tender, moist crumb. I’ve tried a few recipes for quinoa bread, both with and without a sourdough starter, but this is the only one where the quinoa hasn’t been cooked first, which is an extra step. I eat a lot of quinoa and always rinse it thoroughly before cooking, but I’m not sure why it needed to be soaked overnight for this bread dough. It didn’t seem to change the texture of the quinoa. I changed the flour measures slightly because I wanted more whole wheat, and used 3/4 cup of hard whole wheat flour and 1 3/4 cups all-purpose. The only other change I made to the recipe was to add 1 tbsp of vital wheat gluten and 2 tbsp flax seeds. The bread baked for 32 minutes to an internal temperature of 207° and didn’t need to be covered with foil. It’s excellent for sandwiches as well as toasted.
Glad you liked it. I think I soaked it to soften the quinoa before adding it to the flour. It was my first time using/eating quinoa so there was more than a bit experimentation going on.
I was really pleased with the way this bread turned out. I was concerned that the raw quinoa may make the texture a bit gritty, but the crumb is moist and soft. Using raw quinoa saved a lot of time with the prep. The recipe didn’t say whether the sourdough should be fed before using, and since mine wasn’t, I added 1 teaspoon of instant yeast to the dough to ensure a good rise, especially since I used more whole wheat flour than the recipe called for. I forgot to mention that in my review.
I used active starter.
I’m interested in making your bread but I would appreciate the recipe in metric Weight. I see the total weight of the final dough but I don’t see where I can get the weight of each ingredient. Thanks so much
You can try the ingredient conversion chart on the King Arthur Flour ingredient chart. I made this recipe before I ever purchased a digital scale and some of my older recipes are still by volume. Good luck.
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/learn/ingredient-weight-chart