Friends and wizards, please help.
I am going to need to present a nice pain au levain for an occasion on Saturday afternoon. Trouble is, I'm going to be extremely busy, and away from the kitchen except for a little while on Friday morning and a bit on Saturday morning.
So, do I prepare the first fermentation Friday morning, put it in the fridge, take it out when I get home at midnight, shape the loaves, prove them overnight in the fridge, and bake them Saturday morning before I leave? Wouldn't the flavor be too emphatic? Or if I reduce the levain, would the dough be underdeveloped?
Certainly I am not the first to face this problem. What advice can the elders offer here?
Thanks in advance,
Rodger
Prepare the levain Thursday night and allow to mature overnight.
Friday morning make the dough and bulk ferment in the morning. Depending on how much levan and How warm it is you can get this down to a few hours.
Shape and refrigerate till Friday night where it might be ready to bake straight away or another hour or so at room temperature.
Thursday night 8-10pm : Levain build
Friday morning 7am ish : make dough and bulk ferment
Friday morning 11am : shape and refrigerate. You'll have to calculate how much Levain to build.
Friday night 11pm : bake and cool overnight.
I think many people here will say that your bread will not suffer from baking the day before. Aging naturally leavened breads for a few hours will only improve the flavour in most cases.
Thanks guys. In the event, I followed the schedule that Lechem so kindly laid out, with very pleasing results. I made it to every appointment and every obligation the weekend held out for me, and the family ate a delicious loaf of pain au levain.
Thanks again!
R
i have several diffferent recipes I thought I would bake.
The starter was fed yesterday and resting in the fridge. The plan was to use today for doughs ( I even measured out and labeled starter for the different recipes.) But now I can’t be here tomorrow as I had planned for shaping and baking. Some are to be proofed at room temp and others in the fridge.
So can I just pick up where I left off with these bakes later this week, Friday instead of Wednesday? And if so do I need to feed again before using( feed was Monday/yesterday).
i can already see that the bread owns you in a way tthat other food things just don’t.
Thanks for your assistance.