My second venture into bread baking, guided by The Fresh Loaf Lessons. With today's loaf I want to try:
1.Using a preferment to use less yeast and lend more flavor to the bread.
2.Venturing from machine mixing by autolyse, so I'm not "kneading the beegeebers" for 10 minutes - kneading is the one reason why I've shied away from bread baking all these years. I'm lazy.
3.Getting a feel for the slap and fold method.
4.Using a baking stone. I'm working with a darkened pizza stone, saturated with years of grease from frozen store-bought pizzas. I opened the windows and turned on the fan before preheating the oven with this stone. Baking commenced when the smoking stopped. Parchment paper was placed between the bread and the stone.
Well, I don't have a scale, yet. Here's the play by play.
Poolish, 10pm. Left covered on the counter, about 65 f.
1c whole wheat flour
1c water
1/4 t yeast
10 am, 30 minute autolyse of 2c white flour and 1/2c 2% milk, then added,
1/4 t yeast
1T white sugar
the poolish
2T melted butter, salted.
Blended together to make a sticky dough. Placed in a covered buttered bowl to rise in an 80 f oven for one hour until doubled. Slap and fold. Returned to bowl and repeat a second time. Third handling was to shape the dough on parchment and allow to rest while the oven and stone preheats to its max of 525 f. Placed a metal 9X9 pan on lower rack to hold steam water. Lowered temp to 400 to get the stone to quit smoking. Brushed watered-down egg yolk on the top of the dough and slashed top with a steak knife. Baked 20 minutes at 400 f. Loaf made a nice thud when tapped.
Though I used steam, the top, once it cooled down, seems softer than I'd hoped. Supper is still three hours away, but for now, it's a pretty little thing, deserving of a glass of wine alongside. Perhaps in the next chapter!
