Quick and Easy Porridge Bread

Porridge bread. Seriously, does Monday morning breakfast get any easier when you’ve got this simple oat, seed, and fruit bread recipe up your sleeve? Throw it together on Sunday evening and you’ll be sorted for breakfast the next morning!

I’m a bit into quickbreads at the moment. I’ve made white soda bread and Irish brown bread for years, but I was recently introduced to Porridge bread, and FYI, I’m obsessed! It’s everything you love about your morning porridge in a baked loaf of bread.

This one is perfect to throw together on those early mornings before everyone is up. I pop it in the oven, do a quick yoga session and it’s ready just as bodies start arriving in the kitchen looking for breakfast!

So what is Porridge bread?

Quite simply, it’s everything you would put in your porridge (or granola) in a rustic bread. This easy recipe is basically the love child of Irish porridge bread, brown soda bread, and my honey nut granola. All my favorite breakfast bits in one loaf of homemade bread! 

Here’s why you are going to love this recipe

It’s ridiculously simple! We’re talking prep in under 10 minutes simple. 

It’s all mixed in a bowl. No mixmaster, no dough hook, no letting it rise, no turning onto a floured surface to kneed. My kind of bread recipe.

You’ll find most of the ingredients already in your pantry. 

What you need to get started

• Oats. The kind you use to make porridge. In Australia, we call them rolled oats. I’ve also heard them called porridge oats. 
  
  
• Wholemeal / Whole Wheat Flour. I use Odlumn wholemeal flour for recipes calling for wholemeal flour. It gives your baking a lovely nutty flavor and is responsible for making recipes like my Irish brown bread so damn delicious! Irish wholemeal flours are quite coarse and rustic as opposed to others I’ve used. In Australia, Odlum flour can be found in some supermarkets and Irish food suppliers.
  
  
• Seeds – Pepitas, chia, and sunflower seeds are my seeds of choice when baking bread.
  
  
• Sea salt flakes
  
  
• Baking soda (bicarbonate of soda). The Greek yogurt reacts with the bicarb soda to make this hearty porridge bread loaf rise.
  
  
• Runny Honey
  
  
• Egg
  
  
• Greek Yogurt
  
  
• Dried Figs. Angas Park sun-dried, Turkish figs are my go-to dried figs when I’m using them in baked goods. They are still soft, and juicy and are not as dry as a lot of dried figs on the market, making them perfect for baking. In Australia, they are available nationwide in most supermarkets.

Variations

Instead of honey, you could try golden syrup or even maple syrup for a slightly different flavor. You could also substitute the figs for your favorite dried fruit if figs aren’t your thing. The same goes for the seeds.

The nitty gritty

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Grease and line a loaf pan with parchment paper and pop aside.
   
   
2. In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients. Using a whisk, give them a good mix to break up any lumps and aerate the ingredients.
   
   
3. Roughly chop up the figs and add to the dry ingredients. Mix through.
   
   
4. In a separate bowl, combine the yogurt, egg, and honey. Using a fork, give it a quick mix.
   
   
5. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients to the bowl. Using a wooden spoon or spatula, mix all the ingredients together until they are just combined, but no more. It should be a wet and sticky dough, unlike a traditional bread dough.
   
   
6. Place the dough into the greased loaf pan. Using a spoon dunked in water, smooth out the top of the loaf. With a sharp knife, make a cut on the top of the dough down the center of the loaf. 
   
   
7. Pop the bread into the preheated oven and bake for 35 minutes or until cooked through and golden brown on top.
   
   
8. Turn the loaf out onto a wire rack to let the bread cool. Slice and serve! 

Equipment

I use two Mason Cash ceramic mixing bowls to make this recipe for porridge bread. One large mixing bowl, and the other a medium mixing bowl. I love these bowls, as well as being a little nostalgic to me, they are super easy to use. Their shape makes it oh-so-easy for mixing large doughs and scraping everything down the sides of the bowl. Total fan here!

For baking this porridge bread recipe, I use a 24cm x 14cm sandwich size, lined loaf tin. You’ll also need a small serrated knife for scoring the loaf.

How to eat this easy porridge bread recipe

Simply warm with a good drizzle of honey or a bot of butter is always a winner.

For next-day porridge bread, it makes a fabulous toast. Pop it in the toaster and smear a bit of cold butter on top. Take it next level with 1/2 avocado and a poached egg on the side!

Storage

Once cool, store this porridge bread recipe in an airtight container for up to 3 days. While best eaten on the day it is made, porridge bread will toast beautifully, so I tend to toast on days 2 & 3. You can also freeze it for up to one month. To freeze, slice the loaf up and individually wrap each slice twice in cling film, then freeze until required.

Love bread and dough recipes? Here try these ones…

• Easy pizza dough
• Ham, cheese and caramelised onion scrolls
• Irish bacon and cheddar soda bread
• Bacon and cheese skillet rolls

Happy bread baking!

x

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