Inporridgible

Variations on a theme

I have a piece in Edible Boston’s fermentation-themed winter 2021 issue on the Quarantinystarter story, which you can read online here. I also created three sourdough porridge sandwich bread recipes to accompany it: oatmeal-maple, “Cream of Wheat” (sifted whole wheat & honey), and cornmeal-molasses (aka “Anadama”).

They are based upon the oatmeal porridge bread recipe I shared here last year, but with a few key differences. For starters, they contain butter, which makes them even softer in texture and more close-crumbed, perfect for sandos. They are also baked in loaf pans (also perfect for sandos). Finally, I coat the top of the loaves with the same grain that goes into the porridge (in the case of the “Cream of Wheat” loaf, I top it with the bran that gets sifted out).

In order to steam the breads even though they are in loaf pans, I came up with what I consider a nifty trick—putting the loaf pan inside a preheated Dutch oven, with a parchment sling placed underneath it to make moving the loaf pan around easier, like so:

As with all of my other Dutch oven-baked breads, I recommend removing the pan from the Dutch oven once it’s fully sprung, for better air circulation and rapid browning.

I’ve just added the three recipes to Wordloaf, along with a handy-dandy PDF for you to print out. Let me know what you think!

—Andrew