Sprouted Farro Porridge Bread

I recently bought Chad Robertson's Tartine Book No. 3.  It's like a doctoral level bread baking bible with gorgeous photos and recipes that incorporate wonderful nutty grains, in sprouted, cooked, flaked and whole form.  

I was especially taken with the Rene's-Style Pan Loaves chapter which is Chad's take on the dense Danish-style rye breads and the Porridge Bread chapter which uses rye, farro, and oat porridges in the doughs. We could stop there and this book would already be a opus. But the final chapter on Pastry really catapults the book into the genius realm. How about some hearty grains in cookies, gougères, tea cakes, scones, and cakes? There's a recipe for Buckwheat-Apple Tart, there's a Cherry Galette made with kamut flour and creme fraîche, and a Flammenkuchen made with spelt puff pastry dough? Crazy! The Porridge Breads follow the Master Recipe, which took me from start to finish about 14 hours (but I had a matured sourdough starter, which took about 7 days), except for during the bulk rise, after two folds and turns, you add your porridge, nuts & nut oil.  I used a combination of rye flour and semolina flour.  The Master Recipe includes making a levain with the matured starter, resting it, adding flours and water, resting, rising (including every 30 minutes folding and turning), dividing and shaping, rising again, and then baking. Here is my levain:FARRO PORRIDGE–SUNFLOWER SEEDFarro is another ancient grain that is much higher in protein thanmodern wheat.For Two loaves

FLOUR	BAKER’S %	WEIGHT
Rye Flour	50	500 g
Semolina flour	50	500 g
WHEAT GERM	7	70 g
WATER	75	750 g
LEAVEN	15	150 g
FINE SEA SALT	2.5	25 g

ADDITIONS
Cooked farro porridge (see page 168), cooled	50	500 g
Soaked Sunflower Seeds, toasted, coarsely chopped (optional)	20	200 g
Any nut oil (optional) (I used sesame)	5	50 g

Molasses (optional) 4 Tbsp. Farro Flakes for Coating (optional):  2 Tbsp. During the master method, after the first two series of turns, about 1 hour into the bulk rise, add the farro porridge, nuts and nut oil gently by hand until incorporated into the dough.  Continue with the master recipe.  Warning:  you need focus, detail orientation and patience!!!Master Recipe Hand Notes

I sprouted some sunflower seeds in kefir water overnight instead of hazelnuts, because that is what I had on hand.Sprouting Sunflower Seeds
Roll the shaped dough in farro flakes (optional) to coat. Place in floured bannetone basketsflake-side down seam-side up, for the final rise. Home baked loaves are to be baked in a cast iron dutch oven, covered, at 500 degrees of 20 minutes, then at 450 degrees for 10 minutes, then uncovered at 450 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

Done Baking

Sliced Up: Dense, Moist and Delicious!