I recently picked up a packet of quinoa flour at the health food shop – keen to try something a bit different in my baking.  After I’d bought the flour, but before I’d baked with it, someone told me that they had given up on quinoa flour for baking as the grassy flavour just didn’t taste right in baking.

I was a bit miffed and so I started googling, which led me to this brilliant tip from Cake and Commerce.  Cake and Commerce recommended pre-baking the quinoa flour on baking trays (no more than 1/4 inch deep) in an oven at about 100°C for 2 hours before letting it cool and repackaging it for future use.  This tip really did seem to mellow the grassy flavour quite a bit.

I don’t know if this heating process has any effect on the nutritional value.  But, from the sound of things, quinoa is so healthy that it could probably stand to lose a bit of goodness and still be a better choice than regular flour.  There is no science in that statement – it’s more of a ‘vibe’ based judgement.

Don’t be put off thinking it’s an extra hassle.  I bunged the quinoa flour in the oven whilst making a stove top dinner one night and pulled it out to cool after we’d finished eating.  By bed time, all I had to do was scoop it into a zip locked bag and *presto* it was ready to go for my next baking adventure.

You could make my Gluten-Free and Sugar-Free Chocolate Cupcakes (trust me, far yummier than the name suggests), or start playing around with substitutions in your own recipes.  But a word of caution, quinoa flour has a different make up to wheat flours (different gluten levels, etc), so the results in texture can vary a lot.  All the better to experiment with!

If you’re interested in knowing more about quinoa, check out these other posts I’ve seen around the bloggersphere on quinoa:

• Everything you need to know about Quinoa (snspost.com)
• Quinoa: Health benefits, tips and recipes (mnn.com)

Happy Tuesday!