QUINOA, FLAXSEED & CRANBERRY LOAF

(This post is part of an ongoing series on the 2014 Singapore Blog Awards, sponsored by Panasonic.)

Quinoa, Cranberry and Flaxseed Loaf

For the past year, my husband and I have been baking our own bread for the family, because commercially sold bread is simply not healthy, what with the high amount of sugar in it, and chemicals like dough conditioners and preservatives.




My specialty is hand kneaded, rustic breads, which I learned how to do after attending the Le Cordon Bleu Boulangerie course in Bangkok last year.

My Whole Wheat Bread with Oats and Flaxseed,
served warm with a gooey tub of stinky Époisses de Bourgogne cheese.
Yum!

My Linseed Batard and German Puffed Rye Bread.

Linseed Country Baguette.

I also learned how to make everyday, sandwich bread in the LCB course, but somehow, when I came back to Singapore, I couldn't quite replicate it. The sandwich bread was not tall enough and looked more like a short cake loaf. :( Tried a few times, but still couldn't do it :(

Since my husband and son bring a sandwich to work and school everyday, we still wanted to make our own sandwich bread, so hubby took it upon himself to be the family's Official Sandwich Bread Maker. He's been making sandwich bread every week since.

For the 2014 Singapore Blog Awards' Best Cooking Blog Category, we finalists are required to use a brand new, on loan Panasonic Breadmaker to produce 3 recipes that we should blog about. I was a bit nervous about it, because I've never made bread this way before! Thus, this is my first foray into the land of bread maker produced bread (versus produced by my own hands).

For my very first attempt, I decided to make a healthy bread with quinoa, flaxseed and dried cranberries. The whole family tries to eat healthy and quinoa is one that we like to eat. Quinoa is a seed which is a super food and is gluten free. I use it a lot in salads and dishes like Quinoa Stuffed Bell Peppers, which is a staple breakfast for the family. If you want to find out more about quinoa, see this Wikipedia article here.

For this bread, I used Menu 2 (Rapid Bread) in the Panasonic Breadmaker, Crust Medium and Raisin (no music), which means extra ingredients are manually added. Total baking time was about 2 hours, which was perfect for me since I didn't have that much time that afternoon during my first try out.

So first attempt with Panasonic Breadmaker was a success! The bread turned out golden brown and the quinoa provided an interesting, nutty texture. Plus with the quinoa and the flaxseeds, it's very healthy. Definitely repeatable!

QUINOA, FLAXSEED & CRANBERRY LOAF

Ingredients:
250 grams bread flour
25 grams unsalted butter, cut into cubes (put it back in the ref, after cutting and just take it out again when you're ready to start baking)
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoon powdered milk
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten (50 grams)
1 3/4 teaspoons instant, dried yeast
20 grams flaxseeds
20 grams dried cranberries
20 grams uncooked quinoa

Make it a practice to prepare all the ingredients before you actually start.
This arrangement is known as a Mise en Place.

Procedure:

1. Put all ingredients except for the yeast, quinoa and cranberries into the bread maker's pan.

Dump everything in (except for yeast, cranberries and quinoa).
Make sure your water is cold enough (around 5 to 6 degrees C).
I put some ice cubes to cool it.

2.  Put the bucket in, and press Menu 2. Choose crust (I chose Medium). Press Raisin with no Music (Raisin with Music is automatic mode, so I'm using Raisin without Music, as I plan to add the quinoa and cranberries manually later). Close the lid.

Before pressing start, open cover from the top, so that you can dispense the yeast into the special receptacle. Close the lid and press Start.  Then relax for about 30 minutes and do something else. (I watched a show on the computer and played QuizUp with my son. :) )

3.  After 32 minutes, the ingredients are fully mixed and the dough looks smooth and beautiful! If there is some flour residue on the sides, scrape that off with a spatula and push it towards the centre with the dough.

4. Add the cranberries and uncooked quinoa. Just dump it over the dough! Then close the lid and wait for the machine to beep. In the meantime, do something else with your time! (I helped my son with his self imposed summer homework....)

About two hours since we started, the bread was done and the whole house smelled of the wonderful aroma of bread. Voila! Golden brown bread, with a soft inside, and a perfect crust. Not bad for a first try at the Panasonic Breadmaker!

The uncooked quinoa provided a nutty texture!

It was delicious!
A hands down favourite in the family.
Definitely repeatable!