If you ever read my baker blog, you'll know that almost every week, regardless of what else I am baking, I bake a batch of pain sur poolish. I began baking a bread like this while reading The Village Baker. I've since adapted it to be even simpler.
This recipe really has become my control, my baseline for experimentation. Whether it be a new mixing technique, a new brand of flour, or a new baking schedule, when I apply a change to this recipe I have the easiest time perceiving how that change modified the outcome of my bread.
I'm offering up this recipe here because a few people have asked for it. But more than advocating this recipe in particular I'm advocating the method of finding something you like and using it as your baseline for experimentation.
My Pain Sur Poolish (Daily Bread)
Makes 2 loaves
Poolish
1 cup flour
1 cup water
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
Final Dough
1 pound flour
10-12 ounces water
1 teaspoon instant yeast
2 teaspoons salt
all of the poolish
Combine the ingredients for the poolish in a small bowl the night before baking. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave the poolish out at room temperature overnight.
The next day, prepare the final dough, either by using the autolyse method of flour and water first then the rest of the ingredients with minimal mixing or by combining them all and mixing until you have decent gluten development (8 to 10 minutes).
I typically fold the dough once an hour twice during primary fermentation, then shape the loaves and give them a longer final rise, typically around 90 minutes. Meanwhile, my oven and baking stone are preheating as hot as they can safely go.
Baking, with steam, takes me 20 minutes, 5 minutes or so at maximum oven temperature, the remainder at 450-475. I rotate the loaves once half way through the baking.
That is it. Simple, tasty, and a great recipe to practice with.
Relate Recipes: Italian Bread, Rustic Bread.
Do you have a bread recipe that is your standard? Please, share it!
Comments
someone said differently (above).
Im not quite sure what you were asking. 8oz liquid is equal to 8oz dry?
Betty
I'm asking about fluid ounces versus ounces... never mind though, I'll figure some other way to do it...
One fluid ounce of water weighs one ounce. So scaling water is the same as measuring it by the ounce in a measuring cup.
The same is not true of other fluid ounces. For example, one liquid ounce of whole milk does not weigh one ounce. And skim milk will weigh different than whole or buttermilk.
Sorry, I have always been math challenged..liquid=fluid to me
so one is by weight, the other by volume?
I understand that a cup of flour does not equal a cup of water
Sorry TealV ,
Sorry to be so stupid. Gaarp thanks for stepping in
Liquid is the same as fluid.
The different "ounces" are liquid and dry (or weight).
Water is what it's all based on. So 8oz liquid measure (your typical Pirex glass measuring cup) is also 8 oz in weight, for water. But for other stuff, it changes.
8 oz liquid of honey is still at the 8 oz mark on the Pirex cup but if you weigh it, it's going to be subtantially more since it's a heavier substance than water. Then if you measured 8 oz liquid of oil, again, in the Pirex cup, that is still the same but weigh it and it weighs less than the water (which is why it floats).
You'll be better off weighing everything in grams. And no, you don't have to be scared of grams, it's all based on tens, not crazy 16's like ounces and pounds. And you weight everything, including liquids. You'd add 372 grams of flour, 219 grams of water, 14 grams of salt, 10 grams of instant yeast (I'm making these amounts up) but it's all grams, and you add until you have what you need. It actually much simpler and very much more accurate than the old ounces and other ounces and pounds and cups.
I do weigh everything in grams, you don't have to convince me. I was trying to answer TealV's question. I'll just sit and absorb info, rather than trying to help anyone else!
Thanks
Betty
thanks, Charbono! that would make it a lot easier to approximate for some recipes!!
no worries, betty, I knew less than you. ;)
Discouraged? Not in the least!! First time ever with a poolish. First time with a wet dough. First time baking on a stone. NO PICTURES. Loaves? Odd name for what I got. The dough stuck to the improvised proof baskets. I was saved by oven spring. There's got to be some gaping holes in the crumb. What a ride!! Rereading the comments and I understand some of my challenges are shared. I know lots about what I will change for next time. Less water, a little more flour, highly floured board, instant yeast, real proof baskets.
I am totally pumped that the hunks o' bread that resulted look NOTHING like square sandwich bread, then again they don't look like any artisan made 'em either unless he was on drugs. Nonetheless these are free form beauties even if they are only appreciated by me. They will go nicely with a little Italian bean dip I learned in a restaurant I worked in. Cannellini beans, garlic, olive oil, rosemary and salt throw it all in a food processor with a little of the bean water. I could live on it.
With my brick oven coming I can see the future and it looks good. 50 lbs of flour and I should have a handle on this. I don't mean expert just not a rookie any more.
If you got good oven spring it must have been fine.
Now about the bean dip. I've made it and love it but I'd like to know the proportions you use.
How lucky you are to be getting brick oven. Have fun.
weavershouse--Having a ball!! Thanks for the encouraging post. Truth be told I baked until late last night and needed to wait until the wee smalls to taste it and then went to bed shortly thereafter. This am I am postively giddy. Can't wipe the smile off my face. Yesssss! It tastes great and no junk in it.
2. I cooked up a bunch o' beans in a claypot on the back of the stove the other day in anticipation of this event. Can you say slow food? I do it by taste and by feel but when I make a batch today I will attempt to document that feel.
3. You, too, can have a brick oven. Everything I am learning about the building of a brick oven came from books and the Internet. There are Yahoo groups to help you build just like this one helps you bake. cleancarpetman at msn dot com and I can shorten some of that search. I am convinced it isn't as hard or expensive as we make it in our minds. I aim to prove it, stay tuned.
H.
weavershouse, et al,
So Steve, is it baking bread or writing about it that you like best? Well... I like sawing off slice after slice knowing I can make more. I love watching my kids take an active role in consumption and ingesting Mediterraean culture along with their bean dip and returning for seconds and then a little more... Hey, there's no chocolate in it.
This is what I had on hand but would have preferred fresh garlic and rosemary
Fageoli Rosemarino
3 C fresh cooked cannellini, small white or navy beans or canned rinsed and drained
1/2 C fruity olive oil
1/2 C cooking liquid or water just off boil
2 tsp dried rosemary, crushed fine
2 tsp garlic salt
1 1/2 tsp salt or to taste
Place beans and the rest of the ingredients in a food processor and blend to a smooth puree. To serve, spoon warm or room temperature dip into small ramekins and lighty drizzle with olive oil the best you have. Cut crusty open crumb bread into hand sized pieces about two bites each and present with the dip. A few hours in the fridge melds the flavors into a heady repast. Warm or bring to room temp before you serve.
Enjoy.
I am preparing another days daily bread, a double batch. When I combined the base and poolish I mixed salt and yeast into flour with a whisk to distribute it then added 10oz of water and poolish and mixed it with a spatula to incorporate a ragged dough, which came together easily then set timer for ten minutes and mixed with dough hook and KA. Not waiting 'forever and a day' for the dough hook to chase and catch all the flour on its own makes mixing much more efficient, I discovered. It avoids throwing flour overboard, too. I am sure the mixer appreciated the help. I could see that the whole ten minutes was kneading instead of playing tag with the flour.
I am waiting for the first fold as I write this but I already know that this is a superior batch to yesterdays blind walk in the dark. What a difference a day makes--cliche or not!!
More later.
H.
Just folded the first half of my double batch of Daily Bread dough. I used a highly floured board but even for a novice it felt sooooo right on. All the folds went together just like in the movies. I watched Mark Sinclair stretch and fold one more time and applied the new learning as I was doing the same thing. What a fantastic tool the Internet is!
So, now the first two loaves are baked. I didn't get the spring I did yesterday. Possibly because there is lower hydration. Possibly because there is no steam, but there wasn't any steam yesterday, either. I shaped two boules and two baguettes and the first baguette is baking now.
I already have the poolish started for tomorrow. I want to figure this puppy out straight away. I forgot to halve one of my loaves yesterday and I think I like that bigger loaf--more usable slices.
Last baguette in the oven. What do you do with all that burned flour or cornmeal on the stone? I had to take a swipe at it with my oven mitt. I think I will make more of an effort to clean it before bringing the oven back to 550. Makes heap big smoke and is generally disliked by the wife unit. She's cute and I like living here.
Thanks for letting me ramble here. You talk any of this stuff with non-bakers and first you notice the blank stare and then the eyes roll back in the head. Feel free to jump in with any suggestions. I also think its cool that a formula such as this that has been around for awhile, all of a sudden jumps back to life when somebody shows an interest in it and starts to document their experience. Too cool.
Hey, its getting late and when that dinger on the oven goes I am calling it a day-- a very good day!!
Lleno con su gozo y paz!
H.
Instead of using flour/cornmeal/semolina to keep your bread from sticking to the peel or stone, try using a piece of baking parchment paper. No stickies, no smoke. And you can usually get several rounds of baking from each piece before they get too crispy to hold together any more.
Paul
This has been a weekend long project and today is Monday and we have a lot of bread experiments in ziplocs. But, Oh! what I learned in the process. Turns out it didn't take me 50 pounds of flour to get very comfortable with this recipe. I eventually returned to follow the recipe to the letter with 12 oz of water and it turned out great. I honed my techniques and I am filled with satisfaction of having achieved my goal. I am forever grateful to Floyd and ALL of the contributors to this site who have gone before me. This has been a tremendous discovery.
The first image is the final loaf using 12 oz of water. This felt like a major step forward. The pace and rhythm of baking and listening to jazz all went smoothly. It was pure joy since I knew that I had nailed it. I look at soup recipes with a different eye. I know I am not going to rush out to the supermarket just before the soup is on to get "good bread" I kin make it myself, thank you very much.
I am dreaming of garlic and rosemary or kalamata olives.
This is where I started and where I finished. The "little blob" was a poolish and base that never incorporated and then stuck to "my peel", an improvised cookie sheet. The loaf stuck and dragged and left dough hanging over the edge of the bake stone I just shut the oven door and walked away. To my utter surprise the lift from oven spring stood it right up. I rejoiced at that moment thankful that not all had failed.
This crumb looks pretty tight here but there are places that are more open.
I apologize that it is not clearer, new phone with a camera.
The bread and photos will all get better as time goes on.
That's all for now!
H.
First of all, thanks for running a great site full of a tremendous amount of information... it's all so helpful to complete novices like me.
I made your daily bread and am pretty happy with the results, but I'm still getting a few peculiar things happening which seem to occur every time I make bread, irrespective of the recipe (I've only made a dozen of so loaves in total so still a complete beginner):
1. Relatively poor oven spring / too closed crumb, although this is gradually improving so I suspect it's to do with my poor handling technique after fermentation and during shaping. As this is gradually getting better I'm not as fussed about this as hopefully I'll eventually get there!
2. Strange crumb texture. Now, I haven't eaten a huge amount of artisanal bread so it might be that I'm just not accustomed to how the loaf should turn out (although I'm lucky enough eat out in nice restaurants fairly frequently and their bread is never like mine). My crumb is always slightly gelatinous - hard to describe, but not white or even cream, more grey / plasticky. It's always fairly rubbery (which is fine for toast as it's a nice contrast to the crispy outer toasted surface) but not massively endearing in untoasted slices.
Re: the crumb, I'm wondering whether I'm using a too-high gluten flour and/or overworking the gluten. I'm in Britain and don't have easy access where I live to artisanal flours - I tend to use Allinson bread flour with a stated gluten content of c. 12.5%.
I followed your recipe but modified the method slightly. I made the poolish and left out overnight - when I came back to it the following morning there was a slight separation which perhaps might suggest it was overdone a bit? I also made the dough with 10oz water (and excluding poolish, obviously) and put in the fridge overnight to retard. I thought this might improve the flavour. I mixed the dough until it just came together in my KA and didn't add any more flour throughout the whole process so once I added the poolish I was working with a very wet dough.
I added the poolish the following morning and it was a bit tricky because the dough was very cold - I probably should have let it reach room temp before mixing. I had to use the KA a fair bit to incorporate the two different mixtures, but mixed on a low speed (1) for probably a minute, maximum. I didn't knead (not sure it was capable of kneading!) but I effected quite a few "folds" using a spoon in the bowl. I then let the wet dough rise for about 2.5-3 hours on my worksurface. I tried a few alternative methods for preventing a skin forming - a few wet sheets of Bounty (probably the most successful), an oiled sheet of cling film - which stuck - and an upturned bowl, which the dough managed to push up and escape from! After 30, 60 and 120 minutes I did a number of stretch and folds using my scraper (it was too wet to handle with even wet hands, at least for me). I noticed significant gluten development and strengthening during these manoeuvres.
Eventually it was ready to "shape" (a misnomer if there ever were one) - I cut the bulk dough into two and put one in a loaf tin rather clumsily and the other into a round, flat-bottomed pyrex dish (and managed to knock a fair bit less air out of that one). Both containers were oiled and dusted with rice flour. I dusted the tops of the loaves with more rice flour. I let both rise for another 45 minutes while I heated the oven to max. Once done I put them in for half an hour, turning 180 degrees after 15 minutes. I inserted my probe thermometer and after almost exactly 30 minutes (slightly less for the loaf tin) the internal temp was 95 degrees C. Took them out and let cool. I turned the oven down to 200 once the internal temp reached 35 degrees C (i.e. the oven spring had pretty much finished) as I wanted soft-crusted loaves (my wife prefers these).
The taste was amazing - really bready, but definitely cooked and delicious. The crust was perfect for what I wanted - really soft. But the crumb is still odd! Makes fantastic toast but it seems like you're chewing a sponge (it's not that tough, but it's a definite plasticky texture).
Anybody with any ideas why my crumb always goes odd? Is it rubbish bread flour with too much poor quality gluten or am I overworking the dough (hard to believe given I've pretty much been autolysing and hand kneading/s&f-ing)???
Help!
Bodger--Have you read this whole thread? I seem to remember Floyd jumping in at some point and saying that he stretched and folded the dough on a HIGHLY floured surface. This wet dough whether made with 10 or 12 oz of water will incorporate a great deal of flour at that point and become workable, even more so the second fold just prior to shaping. Mark Sinclair's videos on shaping dough are great. After stretching and folding, he turns the dough over pushes the dough ball across the work surface. The friction from the work surface "catches" the dough and its as though the ball is "running over" the dough that is caught. Surface tension increases and stretches the dough surface tight. He then places his hands in front of the dough and does the same thing dragging the dough toward himself. A quick ninety degree turn and he pushes away again. It is subtle if you watch the video but knowing what he is doing helps understand what you see. Better to watch the video than read the explanation. This technique, once grasped, will help you anytime you shape dough. He is promising a set of DVD's and I will be interested in those as well.
I can't help much with the crumb at this point, it is beyond my expertise. Perhaps it will change with different recipes or sourdough. I clearly don't have the answer. I just posted some pictures of clay baking that you might be interested in since I used the My Daily Bread recipe.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10490/clay-bakingi-have-decided-throw-myself-under-bus#comment-55900
For me baking on a stone and with a cloche is definite progress for where I want to go but to each his own.
h.
cleancarpetman, thanks for the quick reply...
I did indeed work my way through the whole thread (as well as a lot of others!) so I noticed a fair bit of extra flour was added in during the kneading/folding stages.
I wanted to continue to experiment with a wet dough (my previous dough for 3 ciabatte was c. 90-95%!) so I didn't want to add the extra flour. It did make shaping rather haphazard but I was hoping to get much better oven spring and a more open crumb. I don't have a camera to hand so I can't upload any photos but this recipe has yielded the best crumb structure so far (even better than the ciabatta dough which was so wet I couldn't handle it without deflating).
I'm reasonably happy shaping lower hydration dough (up to about 75%) but above that I find I just have to dump it from the counter into the loaf tin - I use my scrapers to put in some stretch and folds beforehand to build up a bit of tension but it's nothing like "normal" dough.
The odd thing about my crumb texture is that it's consistent! No matter which recipe I use I always end up with the same thing. Perhaps I'm just expecting something "white" and more like bread I get in a restaurant??? Maybe it's my flour, although I've tried using different flours which are available in my local supermarket (either own brand or Allinsons)...
Bizarre, but if anyone can help it'd be appreciated!
By the way, you have the most amazing crust on your cut loaf in that link! Awesomely thin but looks really, really crispy... masterful!
I love a soft crust but can appreciate yours so much...
The crust was a fortunate accident not anything I did on purpose or had control of. The picture came out better than I hoped as well since I am even newer at photography than baking. That said how does the crumb compare to your result. since we can't see your crumb? I found a discussion on "Holeyness" by Steve B that may be just what we are both aspiring to. On the link you also saw some Romertopf loaves which I baked with a soft crust that turned much crustier and crisp as they cooled. My first attempts at this recipe yielded a soft and chewy crust. The cloche seems to be the difference and now they are crisper.
der Hinterhof
Your crumb looks a lot more "natural" than mine - perhaps fluffier is the best description. My crumb is probably a fair bit more open (perhaps due to the higher hydration level) with a lot of even-sized holes, perhaps 2mm average diameter. I'm quite pleased with the openness (I want the loaf as a sandwich loaf) but it's the actual texture which is the issue - quite plasticky and rubbery. Having said that, given the hydration level I should probably be getting an even more open-textured loaf, which perhaps suggests I'm over handling the dough after bulk fermentation.
I've just started another poolish with a different, all-purpose flour. The lower gluten content might help point out whether it's this which is causing me the problems...
I have prepared a double batch of My Daily Bread with my own variations and have put it in a dough trogh and refrigerated it for 15 hours. Do I bring it to room temp? How long? Do I shape dough and proof one more time? No emergency just a little advice.
h.
Hope you don't mind me jumping in here....
I understand you were following the directions at the top and instead of bulk rising, you put the dough into the fridge, correct? That would mean you take out the dough to warm up a few hours then proceed as directed:
As you fold the dough you will become aware of the bubbles in the dough, it increases in body and becomes rounder and lighter. Fold & rest, fold & rest and do as many times as you can without tearing the dough. Then yes, let if have a final rise before baking. You might not have to wait 90 min though.
Mini
Don't mind at all your jumping in and am honored to have your counsel. I mixed the dough yesterday starting somewhere near 3PM. I put the dough in two additions into the trough and waited an hour, stretched and folded, another hour stretch and folded again then into the fridge around 5PM
now here we are a few hours later looking into the trough wondering what to do next.
h.
Take the dough out of the fridge, let it warm up for a few hours. Then follow the instructions in the box. Below the box, she explains how to know when your dough is ready to let have it's final proof. Good luck, Post pics
Betty
Mini O-- the last time I posted about bulk fermentation I couldn't wait for the response and went ahead and baked, then I posted what I did. I know it appeared as though I went off on my own disregarding your advice.
Its been awhile since I wrote all that but here is what happened when I followed your excellent instruction. I put together several starters and left them in the fridge 4 or 5 days. On Saturday afternoon I put the base and last starter together, let it rise and fold twice then popped it into the fridge. On Sunday I pulled it and allowed just under a two hour warm up. The dough was enough for four small boules of My Daily Bread. I instead divided it in half and went with two oversize loaves and baked for 7 minutes at 550* and thirty five minutes at 465*
The oven spring was incredible and I got some gapers. Thanks so much for the help in stepping ahead here.
ccm
has anybody tried this with whole wheat? anyone who did care to share results?
I love the the texture of this bread. The crumb is light and airy, the crust thin and crisp. While these are not attributes everyone strives for when making artisan bread, it's a nice change of pace for me.
I would love to bake a sourdough loaf similar to this, but the recipes I use most often have a tougher crumb and thicker crust. What about this recipe makes it so light? Is it the hydration? The amount of yeast? Type of flour? Does anyone have any suggestions about modifying it to use sourdough?
I wanted to join The Fresh Loaf to comment on this recipe. It was excellent, and really easy. I added about half a cup more flour because it was sticking to the counter. For the second rise, I put it in the refridge for 3 or 4 hours.
I'm pretty new at doughs that require a poolish, but this recipe was really easy and forgiving.
thanks for the recipe!
here is a picture of the bread:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27944662@N07/4268197242/
Very nice!
I have been baking bread for a while. I would peruse this site for ideas but never felt I had to go to the extremes that some of the afficionados do. When I read the lesson on autolyse something clicked. We are so concerned with time, consistency and convenience that we have forgotten the original processes that our ancestors used. I have learned from many years of experimentation that nothing replaces time for making bread.
I tried this recipe and I was instantly converted to autolyse, folding and working with wet doughs. The results were amazing! I was concerned lately because my doughs were not rising sufficiently and I tried everything but with time you can solve most problems you encounter with doughs.
I just want everyone to know that you don't need to be so concerned with having the "proper" tools or following recipes to the letter. Just enjoy the process and experiment. My measure of success is if someone enjoys eating what I make. They aren't as concerned with the crust or the size of the air pockets in the bread but how it tastes. That is the final arbiter of a good loaf of bread.
Thank you for this recipe; its simple to make and delicious to eat (Even my cat loves to eat it!)
Thanks for sharing your recipe Floyd. I've been wanting to experiment with some more poolish-based breads.
I was doing some math based on your recipe (I like baker's percentage), and it looks like your poolish is somewhere between 165-175% hydration, and you're adding around 65% water to your dough. Combined with the relatively high proportion of poolish in your recipe (I estimate somewhere around 85%), and you're looking at an overall hydration over 90%! No wonder why a bunch of people were saying the dough was too slack.
I wonder why it's beneficial to do it this way (really wet recipe, and add more flour via kneading) instead of scaling back the water added to the dough (to be clear, I'm not talking about scaling back the water in the poolish, only water added during kneading).
I took the liberty of approximating your original recipe using baker's percentage:
Bread Flour 100% 453.50g
Water 65.2% 295.68g
Starter 1 (poolish, 175% hydration) 85% 385.48g
Salt 3% 13.61g
Instant Yeast 0.68% 3.08g
Scaling the water back from 65% to 40% would give you an overall hydration between 70-75% (instead of ~90%), and require less flour to be added...
But again, what am I missing here? What's the benefit of kneading in extra flour?
So I've baked about 5-6 batches of this, with slight mods each time, and I must say I'm very pleased with the results.
If nothing else, I'm a convert to poolish! I love the spongy texture it gives. Great thin leathery crusts on my loaves too, very happy with it.
So in answer to my own question "what's the benefit of kneading in extra flour", I guess if you prefer to do it all by hand, or start with a wet dough and add "just enough" flour to get to the right consistency, have at it. I suppose it's good practice for getting a feel for the bread.
For baking noobs like me, I prefer a more accurate approach, and consistent results. Not to mention I use a stand mixer for most of my kneading. I still test my bread by feel at the end (looking for tackiness like a post-t note or slight stickiness).
In any case, I found reducing the hydration at least 10% helps a lot with this, and you still get great bread.
Does anyone know what may have caused my loaf to totally fail in the middle?
The outside looked perfect with it's brown crust and color. I cooked it as suggested, max oven temp, which is 550 for me, for 5 minutes then turned it down to 470 for another 15. It rose just as it was supposed to but once I cut into it the middle of the loaf was a big ball of dough, as if it wasn't ever even put in the oven.
I followed the recipe with the only change being 3.5 cups of flour instead of a pound as I don't have a scale. I used King Arthur's bread flour with SAF instant yeast. Had the poolish work over night for 8 hours and with the main dough I mixed by hand and did the French fold method four times over the course of three hours with the final resting for about an hour.
I ended up putting it back in the oven for 20 minutes after I had ruined it by cutting into it. In the end I had a large loaf of toast, but it was either doing that to salvage something or tossing it all out.
Any suggestions?
So tried this recipe today ~ turned out very good - one to add to notebook of DailyBreads. Bread was "gone" before I could take "pics" LOL.
Crust was nice - not glossy as some photos here but nice just the same - Crumb very fine not airy - going to work on that. Also how much "play" has anyone done with this recipe ~ thinking about adding oatmeal and raisins & a touch o'honey~ But thats for a later bake.
A shout out to FloyD - MimiO & Dolf nice to be back - was out in Oklahoma for awhile ( ruffin it) now back in Central Pa. AND acess to a computer .
Slide____Out
I have been experimenting with this recipe.
Last night I made a batch with 40% wholewheat and 45g of flaxseed added to the dough.
Combined with multiple folds and rests, an overnight final rise in the fridge and my combo cooker.
The result was fantastic ! Baked them this morning before work.
Brought a loaf in for sandwhiches and everyone loved it. The crunch of the flax and the addtion of the wholewheat made it stand out.
Im going to try grinding some flax and adding it to the dough next time, in addtion to the whole seeds.
Man, I love this bread. Always comes out great for me, no matter what changes and addtions I make.
Well done.
and I think this will become our new weekly loaf! I loved the texture and airy crumb of this bread, and it's easy on the wallet without any milk or butter in it. I might experiment with baking it with steam next time, but not sure what temp I should go with to bake it at in that case. In any case, thanks for a wonderful recipe! So delicious!
-Rachel
I always use steam and have found that the original temps are just fine. I have been making this bread for almost 2 years now. My wife and I travel all over the US and this bread is our staple. I add a 1/2 cup of oatmeal (which I substitute for 1/2 cup of flour). You may have to add a little flour if the dough is too wet. I agree it is a great recipe!
I really love this bread, but I was wondering if there was anyway to make it using sourdough?
Any suggestions? I have good results, but the crust softens quickly after being pulled from the oven.
I have now made this three times and have replaced 4 oz of bread flour with either cornmeal or semolina and both times had great results. I also like to add a Tbsp of honey and some flax and sesame seeds. Just started a poolish last nite and used a 1/4 c whole wheat flour in it. This morning i added my usual plus replaced with 3 oz w/w flour, I think i always have to add more flour in the end to be able to shape it somewhat. The result is superb, good crust and even open crumb.
oops! I cannot seem to rotate the pictures.
salma
Naive question: Is a cloche necessary if i am going to bake in a brick oven?
i have made this recipe several times now!! The first go round I had to add additional flour. Now I just adjust the flour to give me an less wet dough. Approximately 4 cups to 4 1/2. This is still wet dough for me but with a highly floured kneading after the first rise I find it to be perfect. I have just shaped it into my loaves on a heavily floured board after first rise snd allowed them to rise. They come out stunning. I am making 4 loaves right now. 2 all white and 2 multi grain. with the multi grain I added 1 tbs honey and a bit of vital wheat gluten! Excited for results!!!
Hi Floyd! Am I only supposed to let the poolish go for 12 hours or so and no more? If I am not ready can I ref it (the poolish) till I start mixing the dough say around the 24 hour mark? And can I retard the mixed dough 12-16 hours again before baking? Thanks!