Rice Porridge Bread: From Worry to Wonder

The process of making this loaf moved me from a sense of worry and frustration at the low point to a state of surprise and wonder at the finish.  I baked the rice porridge loaf from Tartine 3 this week (25% whole wheat, sourdough, brown rice).

Schedule:

• Wednesday AM: Mixed levain, mixed flours and water for a long autolyse
• Wednesday PM: Mixed all ingredients, bulk fermented 2 hours with stretch and folds every 30 minutes, retarded in fridge
• Thursday AM: Bench rest, shaping into boule, second rise (3 hours time from fridge to oven)
• Thursday Noon: Transfer to peel, disaster, reshape, bake

The bread making procedure went as expected until i transferred the dough to the peel.  The dough partially stuck to the basket cloth, and it spread out immediately on the peel.  Feeling optimistic that the dough would regain it's shape and height during the bake, I vigorously shook it off the peel onto the preheated stone.  However, it lost even more shape and spread into an amorphous blob about 10"x12".  After looking at the mess of dough for a few moments, feelings of frustration, confusion, anger surging through me, I decided to reshape the dough.

I floured the counter, pulled out the stone with mitts, and scraped the dough off the stone with a metal spatula.  After picking off a 1/8" thick layer of baked dough that had touched the stone, I reshaped and scored the dough and put it back in the oven with a roasting pan cover.  I expected that the bread would be dense, but at least it would look like a loaf and would still taste good.  When I removed the cover, the dough looked decent and didn't appear to have risen much.  After baking it until it looked decent, I let it cool and didn't cut it open until the next day, Friday.  I feared that the loaf would be so dense inside that it would be practically inedible.

Big Surprise:

This is one of the best looking crumbs I've attained for a loaf with whole wheat and mix-ins.  The loaf isn't perfectly round, and the scores (a square shape) didn't open at all.  However, I am pleasantly surprised that the crumb is so open and the shape pretty good for a dough with no proofing time after the second shaping.

The end of the matter, the bread tastes amazing and I'm glad with how it turned out. :)