Quinoa Dinner Rolls

I saw a link to this recipe on Photograzing, and it looked delicious.  I love quinoa, and I love bread, so I figured I'd give it a try.  I made a few minor mistakes (see notes), but overall they came out better than I expected.  The crunchy quinoa on top is quite possibly the best bread topping ever.

Quinoa Dinner Rolls

Ingredients:

• 1 cup quinoa
• 2 cups water
• 3 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons (1 packet) yeast
• 1 cup warm water
• 1/2 cup honey plus 1 tablespoon
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 cups bread flour
• 3 Tablespoons butter
• Coarse salt

Directions:

1. Place the quinoa in a pot with one teaspoon of salt and one tablespoon honey, and cover with the 2 cups of water.
2. Bring to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes, until quinoa has absorbed all of the water. Let cool. Set aside 1/4 cup cooked quinoa for sprinkling on top of shaped rolls.
3. In a large bowl (or in the bowl of standing mixer), dissolve the yeast in one cup of warm water. Add the honey, eggs, and oil.
4. Add the 2 cups of whole wheat flour and mix well.
5. Add 2 teaspoons salt and 2 cups of the bread flour and mix well.
6. Add quinoa and 1 more cup of flour and knead dough, adding last cup of flour as needed.
7. Knead dough (by hand, or with dough hook in standing mixer), until dough is smooth and fairly stiff (about 10 minutes). (Dough should pull away from the sides of the bowl in a mixer).
8. Place dough in oiled bowl and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 2 hours.
9. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
10. Punch down dough and divide into 16 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, stretching the top of the roll smooth and pulling the excess dough to the underside of the roll.
11. Place rolls, seam side down, on a baking sheet. Brush tops of rolls with melted butter, and sprinkle with reserved cooked quinoa and coarse salt.
12. Bake rolls for 10 minutes, then lower temperature to 375, and continue to bake for 15 minutes more. Rolls are ready when they are dark golden brown.
13. Serve warm.

Notes:
I made the mistake of not cooking the quinoa before moving on with the recipe.  As a result, I had mixed the ingredients (up to step 5) and then I had to wait about 10 minutes for the quinoa to be fully cooked and cooled so it wouldn't kill the yeast.  I'm a bread-making novice, so I don't know if this is why, but I ended up needing quite a bit more flour than the recipe called for.  I kneaded it in my stand mixer for a little over 10 minutes and the dough was still very sticky.  I took it out and kneaded in around another full cup of flour before it got to a consistency I was comfortable with.

I also made the mistake of cutting one of the rolls as soon as they came out of the oven, rather than letting them sit for a few minutes first.  As a result, the one in the picture is a bit more dense than the rest of them.

Overall though, I'm quite happy with how these turned out.  This is my first "real" bread, and it turned out more than just edible!

Comments

[Coco]

These look delicious! This post spurred me to post one of my old standby recipes, Quinoa Biryani. And I'm glad you enjoyed the miso soup!