Honey Oat Porridge with Spelt 

I ran out of bread (taking a break over the holidays) and needed a loaf to go with soup so I was looking for something simple. I love Spelt with porridge so this was it. 

Recipe 

Makes 3 loaves

Porridge 

100 g large rolled oats

200 g water

45 g honey

40 g butter

Dough

700 g strong bakers unbleached flour

300 g freshly milled wholegrain Spelt flour 

50 g freshly ground flax seeds

700 g water

23 g salt

30 g yogurt

250 g levain (procedure in recipe)

Extra wholegrain and unbleached flour of your choice for feeding the levain

The day before:

1. Take 2 g of refrigerated starter and feed it 4 g of filtered water and 4 g of wholegrain flour. Place in a warm spot for about 8 hours. 

The night before:

1. Mill the grains if you are using spelt berries. Place the required amount of flour in a tub. Grind the flax seeds and add to the tub. Add the unbleached flour to the tub as well. Cover and set aside.

2. Feed the levain 20 g of water and 20 g of wholegrain flour. Let that rise for the night. 

Dough Making day:

1. Early in the morning, feed the levain 100 g of filtered water and 100 g of strong baker’s flour. Let rise in a warm spot until doubled (about 6 hours). 

2. About two hours before the levain is ready, put 700 g filtered water in a stand mixer’s bowl and add the flours from the tub.  Mix on the lowest speed until all the flour has been hydrated. This takes a couple of minutes. Autolyse for at least a couple of hours at room temperature. 

3. Make the porridge: Add the water to the rolled oats and cook on low until water is absorbed and porridge is creamy. Add the butter and the honey. Stir until well distributed. 

4. Once the autolyse is done, add the salt, the yogurt, and the levain to the bowl. Mix on the lowest speed for a minute to integrate everything, then mix on the next speed for 8 minutes. At the end of the 8 minutes, add the porridge and mix until incorporated.

5. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and place in a lightly oiled covered tub. Let rest 30 minutes in a warm spot (oven with light on). 

6. Do 2 sets of coil folds at 30 minute intervals and then 2 more sets at 45 minute intervals, and then let the dough rise 40%. This took about another hour. It should have irregular bubbles visible through the sides of the container and  bubbles on top as well. 

7. Tip the dough out on a bare counter, sprinkle the top with flour and divide into portions of ~800 g. Round out the portions into rounds with a dough scraper and let rest 30 minutes on the counter. 

8. Do a final shape by flipping the rounds over on a lightly floured counter. Gently stretch the dough out into a circle. Pull and fold the third of the dough closest to you over the middle. Pull the right side and fold over the middle and do the same to the left. Fold the top end to the center patting out any cavities. Finally stretch the two top corners and cross over each other in the middle. Roll the bottom of the dough away from you until the seam is underneath the dough. Cup your hands around the dough and pull towards you, doing this on all sides of the dough to round it off. Finally spin the dough to make a nice tight boule.

9. Sprinkle a  mix of rice flour and all purpose flour in the bannetons. I sprinkled some rolled oats as well. Place the dough seam side down in the bannetons. Let rest for a few minutes on the counter and then put to bed in a cold (38F) fridge overnight. 

Baking Day

1. The next morning, about 11 hours later, heat the oven to 475F with the Dutch ovens inside for 45 minutes to an hour. Turn out the dough seam side up onto a cornmeal sprinkled counter. Place rounds of parchment paper in the bottom of the pots, and carefully but quickly place the dough seam side up inside. 

2. Cover the pots and bake the loaves at 450 F for 25 minutes, remove the lids, and bake for another 22 minutes at 425 F. Internal temperature should be 205 F or more.

The boules ended up with awesome oven spring. I think that having a bit narrower pots helped with that. I was glad to see that the new pots weren’t too small for the amount of dough I usually make. Having a curved lid also helped as the boules sprung well above the edge. I didn’t relish the idea of having to rescale all my recipes.