I’ve baked many Tartine-style loaves through the years, but only a few from their third book, Tartine No. 3: Ode to Bourdon whole wheat and their oat porridge loaf. Both delicious and worth the little bit of extra work required, but why haven’t I made more of these unique recipes? The answer is just that I haven’t had the time to derail my focus on the constant improvement of my country loaf. Each time I get the opportunity to bake I want to do a “simple” country loaf to try and open up the crumb, get a more gelatinized interior and increase the caramelization of the outer crust.

However, we recently had a need in the kitchen for millet, and I just knew there was going to be a recipe in Tartine No. 3 for this whole grain. Sure enough, a millet porridge recipe almost opened up to itself as I was perusing the tome. Before heading to my local market to pick up the small amount we needed, I decided to double it and attempt this porridge recipe a few times. My previous oat porridge bakes produced some of my favorite sourdoughs to date, and I just knew, if executed properly, a millet porridge bread would rank equally high on my favorite recipe list.