Whole Wheat and Sprouted Quinoa Bread with Raisins

RECIPE! This takes 2 days.

Day 1:
Soak 3/4 c. quinoa in 1-1/2 c. warm water in a lidded container, room temperature, overnight.

Make biga:
1-3/4 c. ww flour
1/4 t. instant yeast
3/4 c. warm water

Mix, knead until it all comes together. Put in covered bowl/container and stick in fridge overnight.

Day 2:
Remove biga from fridge; let warm up at room temp. for 2 hours.

Drain water off quinoa. Check out the sprouts! Place drained sprouted quinoa in food processor; grind to a mash if possible.

(I use a stand mixer for all my mixing and kneading, so my method goes like this.)

Put ground sprouted quinoa in mixing bowl.

Put biga on floured surface; chop into 12 mixes. Dust pieces with ww flour so they don't all stick together immediately.

Put chopped biga into same mixing bowl.

Add to bowl:
7 T. ww flour
1 t. salt
2-1/4 t. instant yeast
1/4 c. water, room temp./warm
3-1/2 t. honey
1 T. vegetable oil or unsalted butter, melted
2 T. vital wheat gluten (optional, but I used it and it helped, I think)

Begin mixing with dough hook at medium-low speed until it comes together, then low speed. At this point, I added several more handfuls of ww flour--not sure how many. Add flour until the dough comes together in a ball. It should be soft and slightly sticky. (You can also use the mixer to bring it together, add raisins, and then knead by hand for 5 min.)

Add a handful of raisins. Keep mixing with dough hook to assimilate.

Let dough rest 5 min.; then knead 1-2 min. more. Add any necessary water or flour for final adjustments.

Place in oiled bowl and let rise 45-60 min., until 1-1/2 times original size. (I always let my dough rise inside my oven, with no heat on--my house is really cold, but my pilot light keeps the oven warm.)

Shape dough on floured surface: either a sandwich loaf in a pan, or a freestanding ball or torpedo shape. For a batard/torpedo like mine: flatten dough into a rectangle shape. Fold top half down to middle of dough; seal seam with finger pressure. Fold bottom half up to middle of dough; seal seam. Then, fold the current top of the loaf to the current bottom of the loaf; seal seam. Rotate loaf so seamed edge is on bottom. Smush ends in a little, pinching closed if needed. Dust with flour. Place on proofing sheet (I use the back of a cookie sheet dusted liberally with flour).

Let loaf rise 45-60 min.



Prepare oven for baking. If sandwich loaf: just turn on to 425. If baking a freestanding loaf: Place baking stone in oven, with a steam pan below it. Turn on to 425. Let preheat at least 20 min.

Cut shallow slashes in top of loaf while the oven preheats--3 diagonal, 1 long slash, whatever.

For sandwich loaf: put in oven; turn oven down to 350. Bake 20 min., rotate loaf 180 degrees, and bake 20-30 min. more until loaf registers 200 degrees and sounds hollow when thumped.

For hearth loaf: slide/lift loaf onto baking stone (if it's going badly, try using a spatula to help get it off the sheet pan. If it's going really badly, leave it on the sheet pan, put the pan on top of the baking stone, and after 20 min., try lifting the loaf off the stone with oven mitts, then putting it on the stone and taking the pan out of the oven.) Add 1 c. hot water to steam pan; don't burn yourself! Wear oven mitts! Close door quickly. Turn down to 350. Bake 20 min., rotate loaf 180 degrees, and bake 20-30 min. more until loaf registers 200 degrees and sounds hollow when thumped.

Let cool one hour.

EAT.