Sourdough Honey Quinoa Bread

We decided to highlight Quinoa as an ingredient during the month. We have tons in our pantry and it would be nice to use some of it up.

The original recipe is available here at the King Arthur Baking Company website.

As for changes, Jeff omitted the dry milk and water and instead used almond milk. 

It was tasty. If we were to make it again, we would make it exactly the same way!

Naan

Gave naan bread a try. Sharon found a recipe using sourdough. The one tweak I made was to use white whole wheat for all but one cup of the flour, which was bread flour. Cooked them up on two cast iron pans with the burners set to 6/10. Two minutes on first side, a smidge less on second. 

Had a couple with burrito fillings. Folded up like a soft taco. 

Next day made bbq chicken naan pizza. 

More double bagged in the freezer for later. 

They turned out well.

Next time: I might go with more white flour next time for a little softer bite. 

"Shatterdough" rolls

Don't do

Sourdough rolls

I mentioned before that I wanted to experiment with increasing the humidity in the oven while baking my sourdough rolls. Here is the way not to do that.... Preheat the oven to 450 degrees with a pyrex pie pan on the the shelf below your baking shelf. Then add hot (190 degree) water. Observe the pie pan dramatically shatter from the sudden 260 degree differential thermal shock.

OK, plan B.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees with a metal baking sheet on the the shelf below your baking shelf. Then add hot (190 degree) water. It still doesn't like it, but it seemed to deal with it.

Anyway, it did cook a nice roll. Though the browning was uneven which didn't seem to happen without that addition of the water to the oven.
Next Time: Probably best would be to not bother to preheat the pan but rather place it in an already hot oven, then add the hot water. I should make sure the pans are centered, and I could try turning the pan half way through.

The experiments continue....

Sourdough Coffee Cake

I started with a recipe I found online for sourdough coffee cake, but used whole wheat pastry flour in place of all purpose flour. I also added a diced apple and a quarter cup of hazelnut meal to the batter. I spiced the batter with nutmeg, galangal, orange extract, a splash of orange juice and a drop of orange oil.
For the topping I used 1 Tbs of butter and 1Tbs of sesame oil, spiced it with fresh ground cinnamon and salsa fina (fine spices), added a quarter cup of almond meal and then completely lost my mind and threw in a quarter cup of dutch process cocoa. I think I will regret that last move. Maybe a Tbs would have been interesting.

Sourdough Sandwich Rolls

Started another batch of Classic Sourdough Bread to use to make  more sandwich rolls. I actually started the sponge last night with a cup of starter and three cups of white whole wheat flour plus 3 T of wheat gluten and 1 1/2 cup warm water. This morning I added two more cups of flour, 1 T each of sugar, salt, and orange juice. 

After kneading in the stand mixer it is resting. Next I will divide it into eight parts and form them into balls. They get to rise again in the pan on the silicone mat. We'll see if I can remember to slit the tops before they go in the oven this time. 

The photos are from the last batch I made. Since the recipe is for two loaves, I bake until the internal temp is 190 and I have some nice browning.

Sourdough pancakes

I have a sourdough starting going which yields a cup of starter a day. Some days I'm not up for baking, so sourdough pancakes are in order. Today I added 1 cup of starter to 1 cup of my pancake mix, and egg, a splash of orange juice, some cocoa nibs, a half cup of toasted almond meal, and a quarter cup of warm milk. Let the batter sit for half an hour. Then fried them up.