The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

yosh's blog

yosh's picture
yosh

I had 50% WW flour to use, and having enjoyed my last bake with Modernist Cuisine's "French Lean Bread" recipe, I thought I'd just try adapting that. A little Googling turned up this article [www.crumblycookie.net] which discussed P. Reinhart's Whole Grains method of two overnight soaks – half the flour with yeast, half with salt. That piqued my curiosity, so I tried to strike a balance between that idea and the MC recipe by expanding the existing poolish recommended in MC, and soaking the rest of the flour with water (but no salt). Well, expanding the poolish was a blockheaded idea, since that left the remaining flour with only enough water for about 25% hydration! It wasn't a dough – more like a desert stew, with little gobbets of dough huddling together in a dune of loose flour.

Well. I didn't want to add extra water and throw off the ratio, so I let it be overnight. When I went to mix the two halves yesterday morning, the little lumps of dough seemed quite hard, and almost impossible to "iron out." I was despondent. But miraculously, after bulk ferment, the lumps were gone! Bread baking is truly a surprising journey.

In the end, I was quite happy with the taste and the crumb. Unfortunately it turned out to be a low-rise loaf. I think the culprit may be my shaping (not enough surface tension), but only more practice will allow me to differentiate between that and under-proofing etc.

yosh's picture
yosh

I attempted Modernist Cuisine's "French Lean Bread" recipe (as a large boule) ... and made a vlog about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iay7lPEh0-4

The loaf is delicious! Not sure why the crust got all cracked up, but the crumb of the loaf itself was eminently satisfactory.

First white loaf

yosh's picture
yosh

Loaf, cooling, from above

For my first pre-ferment, I tackled Jovial's No-Knead Overnight Artisan Loaf recipe, in which the entire dough (salt included!) is left to sponge for 10–15 hours. I modified the recipe somewhat, subbing instant for active dry yeast and simplifying the baking process, as I don't currently have a banneton or Dutch oven.

Is it a poolish? Is it a biga? No, it's Superman! Maybe it's technically a pâte fermentée since it includes the salt?

In any case, I let the sponge rest for 13 hours, 20 minutes. The Saccharomyces went to town, and I liked the look of the risen sponge, though what do I know? I'm a bear, I suck the heads off fish.

Shaping the dough was harder than expected—I may have over-floured the counter in an attempt to appease the sticky Einkorn gods—and I ended up tearing the surface a little, hence the yawning crevice in the finished loaf. Perhaps that was also the reason for the lopsided dinosaur egg shape? I think it has a certain thrift-store charm, though you might disagree.

Eschewing the Dutch oven instructions, I baked the boule freeform for about 45 minutes at 450°F.

Behold, the crumb

There's a sort of seam or bubble just under the top crust, so the crust falls off easily. I wonder why? But the loaf tastes good. I would have liked the crumb a bit less dense, but it's chewy, and the flavors are certainly more complex and poppy than the straight loafs I've made in the past couple of weeks.

I look forward to future expeditions into the vast jungles of pre-fermentation.

Subscribe to RSS - yosh's blog