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Do you delight in eating porridge for breakfast? Or would you rather stick to bread?
No need to choose, bake and eat Lena’s Swedish Porridge Bread instead.
I met Lena at an Airbnb in Abergavenny. She and her husband had just driven round the coast of Ireland and were on their way back to Sweden via Wales. We got chatting and she mentioned she ran a cafe for 8 years and then a B&B for a further 8 years in Sweden. One of the most popular breads was porridge bread. Of course I asked for her recipe.
I discovered that this porridge bread is eaten at any time of day and suits both sweet and savoury toppings. It’s incredibly light and very moreish.
Porridge bread is very popular at the moment. Lena’s version includes milk and butter and ljus sirap, a light sugar syrup. According to the manufacturer DanSukker “Sirap has some functional advantages, it promotes the fermentation of bread, gives a nice crust on the bread, and makes the breads more moist, juicy and keeps fresh longer”. In the UK, our closest equivalent is Golden Syrup.
Do use porridge oats rather than any other variety of oatmeal. After some trial and error using oats in other breads, I like to use Mornflakes Superfast Oats (the oats are carefully cut into three before rolling. The smaller oat flakes absorb the water or milk quicker).
Lena’s Grötbröd Rolls
I’ve adapted the original recipe a little. You’ll find Lena’s bread rolls are easy to make, but do keep an eye on the porridge when you are cooking it as it burns easily. I’ve added baker’s percentages so that you can scale the recipe up or down. You’ll make approximately twenty 80 gr buns. You could of course, also make bread loaves but you’ll need to bake longer
Lena's Swedish Porridge Bread Rolls
Equipment
- Stand mixer, saucepan, wooden spoon, baking tray, digital scales, pastry brush
Ingredients
- 250 grams porridge oats (25%) plus a 20 gr extra for sprinkling on top of buns
- 400 grams water (40%)
- 75 grams butter, cubed (7.5%) salted or unsalted
- 375 millilitres whole milk (37.5%) plus a little extra to brush the buns with
- 100 millilitres golden syrup (10%)
- 25 millilitres oil (2.5%) light such as vegetable or sunflower not olive oil
- 18 grams salt (1.8%)
- 1 kilo white bread flour (100%)
- 20 grams fresh yeast (2 %) or 10 gr instant dried yeast
Instructions
- First make the porridge. Cook the oats with the water in a large pan. Do not take your eye off the pan as it is very easy for it to burn. The mixture will be very thick.
- Add the butter and milk and mix well. Allow to cool slightly
- Measure the dry ingredients into your stand mixer bowl or large mixing bowl. Keeping the salt and yeast separate. Crumble or mix the yeast into the flour.
- Add the syrup and oil.
- Mix at slow speed for 5 minutes, then increase the speed to medium and mix for a further 3 minutes or until the mixture has come away from the sides of the bowl. Or beat the ingredients together.
- Cover the bowl and leave for 1 hour before shaping. Pre-heat your oven to 220°C
- Cut into 80 gram pieces and shape into rough rounds. Allow to rest 10 minutes then shape again. Place evenly on a greased baking tray allowing a thumb width between each one
- Brush with milk and sprinkle oats on top. Allow to prove for 30-45 minutes
- Bake for 15 minutes then check. The buns should be a golden brown. Bake further if not golden
Bake more bread
I’ve created a series of posts on tips to bake better bread including
Bake Better Bread: Pre ferment – Pâte fermentée
Hello Sanna, Thanks for getting in touch. I’ve now added the oil into the recipe instructions!
Just a couple of comments about the recipe; I chose to make the porridge in the microwave oven as indeed the mixture was so dry and was afraid to burn it. Followed the recipe but when beating the dough, it felt very dense and too dry. Realised that there was no oil in. The recipe does not tell when to add the oil. I did it in the end and seems to have worked. Dough is rising right now!
hello- would it be possible to replace fresh yeast with dry yeast? Thanks