Black Rice Porridge Bread
This bread is based on Chad Robertson's Tartine 3 brown rice porridge bread. As Robertson says, "...combine well-cooked whole grain rice with a highly hydrated whole wheat dough and let the loaves fully ferment with natural leaven to make the nutrients contained within the finished bread readily available for digestion." I opted to use organic black rice for its rich nutritional value and cut back on the total amount added to the dough to keep the bread a bit lighter; I also added a small amount of oat porridge for complimentary taste and texture. The dough was mixed with 200g fresh milled, high extraction organic rye/Marquis wheat flour and 800g organic all purpose white flour autolysed with 750g filtered water for 1 hour; then 15g sea salt, 250g young levain was mixed/50 stretch and folds. After the second of four series of stretch/folds done every 30 minutes, 350g black rice porridge and 50g oat porridge was added. Bulk fermentation was 4 hours at room temperature; then pre-shaped and 1/2 hour rest before final shaping and cold-proofing for 10 hours. Baked covered for 25 minutes at 500 F; 10 minutes at 450 F and then uncovered for 20 minutes at 450 F. The bread is very soft, chewy with a slight purple colour and a nice nutty, mellow flavour; sesame seeds and the sifted bran coating added an extra bit of flavour to the crust.